Rotate? Balance? What do you do?

I just did a rotation yesterday. I have Nitto Ridge Grapplers which are non-directional, so did the Z pattern.
A bit of a PITA as you can't just swap pairs of wheels and need 3 wheels off at a time.

This time I just swap front-and-back on each side, then lift the rear and swapped left-to-right on the rear axle. Same effect, just two steps...

 

Haven’t had an alignment since 1976. I don’t give a shit.

 

Every 5k. DIY so I can take a quick peak at the brakes and underneath.

I'm rapidly approaching 60k miles on my current set of tires. Overall perfectly even wear. No doubt in my mind the longevity has been maximized (optimized) by frequent rotations. I will need new ones, however, in a few months though. They are just about worn out.

* Alignments only when needed.
* Ditto for re-balancing.

My truck is butter smooth on the freeway.

 

You spend 25% more every time you buy tires but only get 20% more tread life with 5 tire.
Not to mention the need to juggle tpms sensor ids because the trucks ecu only holds four, so that adds upfront cost of a tool.
Again it’s what I do, but mostly for the convenience of only ever having one tire off at a time lol

 

I just rotate my tires every year when I switch from my snow tires back to my summer tires.

 

Seasonal won’t work for me. Since i switched to summer set I’ve done this many miles & have more than month to go.

 

That’s some funky math, so I’ll say you actually use your spare instead of letting it rot under your truck for a decade. So you always know it’s good to go when needed.

Also, youre juggling sensor positions when you do a normal rotation. You already need the tool.

 

I rotate mine every 5k when I change my oil. Just replaced Michelins that made it to 80k miles with perfect even wear.

 

You don’t need a tool for a 4 tire rotation. The truck can learn the new positions of the 4 sensors it is able to store with the little button in front of your left knee, but you have to remove the ID of the new spare and add in the old spare every time you rotate if you do 5 wheels.

The math is sound. If you rotate every 5k, you loose 5k miles on each tire after 5 rotations vs 4 tire.
4 tire, 5 rotations = 25k per tire
5 tire, 5 rotations = 20k per tire
4 tire, 10 rotations = 50k
5 tire, 10 rotations = 40k ect…
If you made it to 100k with 4, you would have 20k more miles on each tire than if you had rotated 5. (Took me a while to post the figures correctly. I always have to draw a matrix whenever I think about this problem lol)

Like I said I’m pro 5. There are lots of good reasons imo; easier job (arguably), lots of practice and familiarity with the spare mechanism, no seized spare hoist, tread depth on spare matches, matched wheel if anything gets messed up…
Cost just isn’t one of them, you spend 5% more $

 

I have a good relationship with the local Discount Tire and they'll follow any directions you give them. I always specify the pressures I want and I also tell them to use a torque wrench only when tightening the lug nuts and they're good for it. I do oil and transmission fluid changes myself on all my cars (four of them right now) but I hope the tranny's are good now for as long as I'm on the green side of the grass. I wouldn't last long as a Jiffy Lube employee, takes me three times as long as they'd allow. Maybe it's a lot easier with the car on a lift or me in a pit, but all I have are ramps and jackstands.

I punished myself this week and still paying for it. I replaced the rear brakes on my daughter's 2011 Corolla S as well as the rear brakes on my 2011 Tacoma. Both vehicles on jackstands, me sitting on the ground or a low stool; new drums as well as shoes. The truck was a lot harder, the tires and wheels about twice as heavy as the Corolla's. Back is killing me, but a handful of Motrin and a Rusty Nail (Scotch and Drambuie) knocks the edge off pretty well.

 

I haven't done an alignment on my Tacoma since I bought it (used) and I've put 70K on it. I doubt it's ever had an alignment since it was new (147K) but the tires wear perfectly. I did a performance 4-wheel alignment on my Miata back when I bought it and it never changed in 75K of hard driving and a half dozen sets of tires.

 

I have Costco rotate and balance every 6k. BFG K03. Decent tread wear and re balancing does improve steering wheel feel.

 

They rotate every time I drive too.

 

Balancing "when needed" is a slippery slope because the tires' degradation in performance occurs subtly and gradually. It's only after I re-balanced that I noticed a difference even though it felt fine beforehand.

In a perfect world, tires would never stop rolling at a steady speed over a single surface for their entire lifespan. But parking, stop and go, off-roading, etc all contribute to uneven wear at the microscopic level that leads to [some degree of] imbalance.

 

If you take down your spare you can simulate a 5-tire rotation replacing one wheel or one side at a time, then when you're done just chuck the spare back upunder

 

blah blah blah nobody specified what spec tires they are using or how they are using their truck. Therfore, with a thread title like that, I can't resist.
https://youtu.be/dXH3n5kgqtg?si=n10avLaCj178P5Sm

 

I have never heard of this strategy with a FWD car. Not saying people don’t do this but I guess I just figured everyone rotated tires in general.

 

I thought radials were directional and to be rotated front/back only? After reading these posts, I guess not.

 

I've been running totaled vehicles lately, rebuilt by me after being bought cheap on insurance auctions. One of the ways I check my rebuilds is to NOT rotate tires... and honestly, I never have sweated it or done a rebalance unless I thought there was a problem and I'd already exhausted all other options. And then I usually find the problem is something else I missed.
My present Taco had the rear end knocked out from under it by being T-boned. I had to straighten the frame rails, replace the spring U-bolts, replace a broken wheel and brake drum, and get one axle bearing replaced. The truck had 68K miles on it and is now just short of 100K and has been driven like a truck that likes being in the outback... with no issues. I put a new set of Yokohama Geolandars on it before it was repaired and they have worn evenly. I expect to get another 30K miles from them.