Tire rotation - I'm confused
 

Prior to owning a BMW, I would rotate my tires every other oil change. BMW told me, and I've read here, tire rotation is not necessary. They will do it, but it is not a covered service. So anyway, I open my lease payment bill and on the little Inside Track pamphlet which is included, this months car tips are how often you should rotate your tires. :wtf:

I'm not sure if the Diamaris are uni-directional, but if not you have to have them flipped left to right (and remounted)...normally you move tires rear to front, but now you have staggered tires. On non-staggered tires, I believe the interval is 7K. I was under the assumption my Diamaris tires would be due for replacement before they needed rotation...dunno.

L, if the flyer wasn't X5 specific, my guess is it's just
a mailing stuffer from the feelgood/mkting dept.

I'd skip the tire rotation thing...

Even on cars that do "allow for" TR, I'm not sure I need
a high school drop out hammering on the rims and
wheel lugs with an impact gun, twice a year.

My 2Cts.
BR,md

BMW engineers carefully studied the concept of tire roation, economics etc, and concluded rotation is not worth the time and money. (if your wheels are properly aligned and inflated, etc...)

Fagedabboudit.

:iagree:

I got nearly 70K miles from my original Michellin Energy tires and never rotated them. And the wear pattern was just fine. Don't bother with rotating them.

the problem is the amount of neg camber on the 4.4 SP. the inside wears faster than the front. the only way to even the wear is to dismount the tire and flip them. Not an option with diamaris or alot of tire out there today since they have a specific side facing out.

Relax, every time you drive your tires rotate! ♪"The wheels on the X go round and round."♪
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Most of your high end auto manufacturers don't recommend tire rotation. The reason for this is that each tire gets worn to the specific suspension tendencies of each corner of the car. Therefore when you rotate the tires the handling will be decreased until the tires are reworn down to the new corner. Most domestic autos you will not really notice since their build specifications aren't as precise and they don't really set up their camber being performance minded. But with your X they do car about performance.

Thanks for all the responses guys. I guess it was just marketing BS in the pamphlet. Wanted to be sure. I'm still getting over not having to change the oil every 3K miles.

If you still like changing your oil every 3k, just get it tested by a place like http://www.oaitesting.com/ or
http://www.amsoil.com/storefront/oai.aspx


IF it is still good, then you don't need to change it but every 15k.

Synthetics have changed more in the past 5 years than in the last 20.

Hope that helps you save oil money and the most important, what you are worth per hour not having to change the oil.

Cheers,
Kevin

I just liquify my rears every 10,000 miles forcing me to buy new tires :( DOH!

Well what do you know. Inside this months bill, on the back of Inside Track - BMW apologizes for incorrect information regarding tire rotation. BMW DOES NOT recommend..

Ok, now for an alternative viewpoint :)

I rotate tires on everything I own (tractors, ATVs and power washers excluded). I guess I'm old skool, but in my own personal experience, I have gotten subjectively better and more even tire wear by rotating tires every 5k miles.

Granted, you're limited when it comes to the newer tires that have a inside and outside face, or staggered wheels/tires, but unless you have directional tires, you can still go side to side. I did the side to side rotation on my 4.4i. Wish I could tell you that it made a difference, but that darn inner tire wear caused by the negative camber was not to be denied and the rears were about gone by 20k...The fronts, however, easily had another 20k life in them.

I'd always heard that not rotating tires allowed each tire to wear in at each corner in such a way that maximized performance, and that was why BMW didn't recommend it. Makes sense. Seeing as how my days of driving at 9.5/10ths are pretty much behind me, I'd rather err on the side of tire wear over max performance. It's probably a moot point anyway. I guess I'm just getting set in my ways.

I do the rotation myself so I don't have to worry about some high school kid ruining them. I probably don't need to do it, but it works for me. Ah heck, I do my own oil changes too, and even though I use Mobil1 and BMW filters, I still change every 5k. It might be overkill. I dunno...cheap peace of mind, maybe?

Mike

Hey Kevin, what area of Phoenix do you live in? BTW, your trailscout web site doesn't work :)

I fail to see how rotating side to side could help tread wear unless you remount the tires. Otherwise the inside tread is still on the inside and the outside tread is still on the outside. I guess it might help if you only turned in one direction ala NASCAR.

awd and 4x4 don't generally need tire rotation because they all do the same amount of work theoretically..

with staggered rims (rear being wider then the fronts), you don't rotate them either.

unless of course you dismount the tires and swap them side to side like rayxi was saying (which i did on some cars).

i recently took my X to BMW for a proper wheel balance ( i put the 20's back on the X!) and they told me as long as the tires get aligned every 10,000 miles or so there is no need for a tire rotation.

besides i now have the staggered wheels so that's not an option.

Makes sense, A...and in the big picture, you'll see enough wear and tear on your wheelfaces and tire beads to offset any savings in treadwear. Old habits die hard, no?

Mike

from what I have been told because it changes the direction of the tires for a more even wear. if you change sides and dismount the tire there is no point. because the tire still rotates the same direction and it does not help with wear?

Incidently, got a discount coupon this week from the stlr on rotating my tires...:dunno:

i was wondering how long the Michelin Energy would go...i just replaced mines at 42K but it still had some tread left. reason i replaced them was because i saw cracks all along the edges and inside the tread itself. tires is going on 4 years.

btw, the steering is very "light" with new the Michelin Energy tires. not sure if this is normal or not. almost seems like I have servotronic now. i bought this X5 4.4 used with 10K miles so I wouldn't know how it drove off the dealer lot.

Let me also add that the shop said my tires were evenly worn (no rotation done before), which meant no alignment needed for the new tires.

I was actually surprise, probably because I keep thinking the rear (with the large camber) tires would be worn unevenly.

Tires can wear unevenly across the tread on a given tire or they can wear unevenly between different tires. Are you suggesting tires can wear unevenly in the radial direction due to direction of rotation? I'm having a hard time imagining how that's physically possible. Sure you can flat spot a tire if you lock up the brakes but changing the direction of rotation isn't going to fix it.

I am not a tire expert, but that is what I was told by one. I believe the rotation and changing the rotation direction has to do with feathering on the tires.
There is a reason that the tires are not directional, I assume so that they can be flopped.
Also when rotation non staggared tires, the rotation pattern is to move the drive(either front or rear) wheels straight back or forward, then cross the non drive wheelswhen moving to the front or back. I have to say that rotating tires has always improved logevity for me. This is my first vehicle with a staggared setup so I dont know. but, I was told rotating them acrooss will even wear and improve logevity. who knows.
But you know BMW has also said that they put lifetime tranny oil in their cars( I guess some of them ) but I tend to change that too, its worked in the past, I have a 81 accord with 346000 miles on it still running, so I would have to think that maintence things are necessary. oh well I think that everyone has a different opinion on everything, but that is what we are here for to her them right?

I have actually asked my service advisor on this issue. He has been working at BMW for more than 15 years and he reassured that rotating tires are not necessary on BMW and especially on X5 - since its a 4wheel drive car.

My understanding is that if you have a staggered set-up with asymmetric tires you can't/should not rotate tires on the X

- Rear to front rotation is obviously not possible because of the wider rears
- Because of the negative camber the inside of the rears will probably wear sooner than the outer tread. In theory it is possible to rotate symmetrical tires from right to left etc. by taking the tires off the rear wheels and flipping so it is now outside in. But the Michelin Diamaris tires that I have are asymmetric so the tire pattern is different across the tire so you probably should not flip them on the wheel.


Either way I prefer the peace of mind with new shoes