tire rotation, why not this way

The primary reason that I (and many others) rotate four truck MT or AT style tires is that the steering tires naturally round the tread right on the edge reducing some of the side bite that we use when running trails with any kind of rut.

Regardless of a good or bad alignment, this happens to some degree and can be given a bit of wear correction by moving said tires to a different corner.

My spare is the same wheel/tire combo, so I rotate this fifth tire into the mix for maximum mileage overall, and have a really good idea what shape my spare is in.

It is much less important to worry about the side bite on a street tread tire mounted on a truck, as they generally don't do any good in ruts when attempting to get any grip to drive up the side of the rut to get out.

 

5 tire rotation every 5k miles following the rear cross pattern in the lower right

 

It sounds like you must have a lot of fun driving that car.

 

2011 BMW 128I N/A I6 6spdMT
I drive the shit out of it and take real good care of it
Replaced most of the suspension parts about 15K miles ago [Eibach/Bilsteins; M3 control arms and such; lowered it a hair]
It is so much fun to drive..
and it just turned 100K miles!

 

I only had to read the original post seven times before I finally understood it. Or, at least, I have a coherent theory about what it means. And perhaps that was the distraction my brain finally needed to let me fall asleep.