6 tire rotation

[snfexpress]

Okay, for those of you who are in the know, how should I rotate the tires on my dually? Some say like below (Normal Wear):



This is how I have been doing it since I purchased my '07 truck.

Some say that reversing the direction that a tire is used to will cause the belt to break. Is this true or did it used to be true?

I rotate my tires every 5,000 miles. Is this too much, right on or should I go to say, 10,000 miles?

Thanks for the replies!

[DQDick]

Interestingly enough, the Goodyear Engineer at the Escapee Boot Camp said the normal wear pattern is the right one. When I was talking to him off to the side, he admitted he never rotated his unless he had uneven wear.

[awaywego]

My owners manual says there is no need to rotate tires, but I had a bumping at very low speed and the Ford dealer in Sturgis SD. said the tires needed rotating. He did it and no more bump but have never had to do it since. Now have 130,000 and on third set of tires. Got 35,000 out of first set,(Generals) and 87,000 on second set (Michelin's) and new ones put on last fall (Michelin's again).

[kab449]

We rent box trucks at my business and we have always rotated the tires when the front tires showed excessive wear on the sides from steering. The rear ones always wore even. Our rotation was to take the two tires from one side of the rear axle and put them on the front axle. Then the two tires from the front went to the rear. The next time just do the same with the other side of the rear axle. Always ran radials and never had belt problems. Usually would go 7500 to 10000 miles unless someone would knock out the alignment. The trucks get inspected at the end of every rental.
BTW I got my bulbs but didn't have time to exam them yet. Thanks

[Slufoot733]

This is one of the reasons I never wanted a dual wheel truck. My buddy has his second F-350 dually and he has never rotated his tires. I has turned out that his rear tires seem to last a long, long time. The front tires wear out no matter what so he just buys two new front tires when needs. Right now he has 32,000 miles on truck and just bought his first set of replacement tires up front. The rear tires look almost like new.

To dismount all the tires and remounting and balancing them so that the 'shiny' wheels are in the right place costs almost as much as one new tire. Doing that a couple times to extend the life of just two tires just seems like a waste. He figures it's cheaper in the long run to let the front tires wear out and replace them. Of course, this only works as long as the rear tires all wear evenly and continue to hold up like his have. About 75% of the trucks milge is towing his fiver.

[1retired06]

Normal wear pattern is what my manual calls for, and recommends against any front to back rotation.

[Hooker]

When I had my D/A dually, I rotated all six (as depicted in the manual) at 7,500 miles. And, I do mean "I"...got a breaker bar and 1/2" drive torque wrench from Harbor Freight, and found a pipe to use as a cheater bar at home, and did it. Makes for a good afternoon project.

[Art-n-Marge]

Yup, some rotate, some do partial, some do not rotate at all. And that's not just duallies. I'm not sure what I would do but I suspect I'd rotate using the normal diagram every 5,000 miles like I do now. If there is irregular wear, I'd get that fixed so I'm not destroying the rotated tires. So what's the torque for them wheel nuts on a dually?

The olden days where you cannot change the rotation of the tire for a radial are long gone. The tire manufacturers apparently fixed that quite a few years ago and I believe the ONLY radial tires that you can't rotate are stamped with information that tells you not to do that. I had some performance tires on a BMW and a Mercedes Benz that were like that. If it doesn't say NOT to, then you should be good to go. I don't think any truck tire is like that any more.

I might add that the Bimmer and Benz tires were larger in the rear so I couldn't even do a front to back rotation even if I wanted to. Plus these tires wouldn't last very long anyway, but I think that was from the hard driving. I will say that when I had my ultimate driving machine (BMW M5) the tires were getting changed a lot, but that's because I didn't use the brakes and boy was that fun. I sold the car when it had 53,000 miles and the brakes and clutch were still in great shape and had changed the tires out recently.

[1retired06]

Noted the need for a breaker bar. On our truck, at 200 miles, rotated the rear rims to make valve access easier, and all lug nuts were only finger tight. Another bullet dodged.

[steves]

quote:Originally posted by Slufoot733



To dismount all the tires and remounting and balancing them so that the 'shiny' wheels are in the right place costs almost as much as one new tire. Doing that a couple times to extend the life of just two tires just seems like a waste. He figures it's cheaper in the long run to let the front tires wear out and replace them. Of course, this only works as long as the rear tires all wear evenly and continue to hold up like his have. About 75% of the trucks milge is towing his fiver.

Ditto on the above.

[richfaa]

Both Ford dealers we deal with in Ohio and Florida say do not rotate the rear tires.We have 50K miles on the rears and they have even wear.

[snfexpress]

Thanks everyone. Oh, and the torque on my lug nuts is 140 pounds.

[KathyandDave]

We had to rotate the Generals early because we ran a few hundred miles heavy on the front and they developed scalloping on the inside edge. Easy to run heavy because the diesel, the 4x4 and the crew cab add a chunk each. Add a load of wood in front of the hitch frame and, voila, the front axle is overloaded. Now, I gingerly add weight inside track box when towing. I think that the height of the hitch frame adds load to the front axle when braking. Next time, I may consider Rich and Helen's snowplow package to beef up the front axle.

[Tom S.]

Diagrams left out the spare - or don't you plan on rotating it too?