Rotating tires: Include spare?

[Hayes]

Do any of you include your spare in your tire rotations?

Seems like a good idea. The spare just sits there and ages as you drive through the other four. Even though it would still be "new" as far as the tread goes, eventually the tire will be unusable anyway.

How would you include the spare in a rotation?

Hayes

 

[Mars]

I rotate my spare through with the other tires. No sense in having it just sit there if you ask me. I work right by a Discount tire, so I have them do it for me while I'm workin', I'm not sure what the rotation pattern is.

 

[cruiserdan]

I do a 5 tire, primarily to keep the spare the same diameter as the 4 on the ground.

Spare to LF, LF to RR, RR to RF, RF to LR, LR to spare.

 

[Kalawang]

Likewise, a 5 tire rotation. Offhand I think it buys me at least 20% more tire life and yes, tires become unsafe with excess age.


Kalawang

 

[NorCalDoug]

5 tire rotation here too. I like to keep them all even.

 

[Hayes]

Likewise, a 5 tire rotation. Offhand I think it buys me at least 20% more tire life and yes, tires become unsafe with excess age.


Kalawang

...makes sense: 1 tire of 5 = 20% of your tires...

Hayes

 

[Doc]

Yep, 5 tire rotation, always clockwise. My tires aren't directional, so the RR tire becomes the spare and the spare goes to the LR spot.

 

[MaddBaggins]

I never have, but am considering it the next time I get tires.

 

[RavenTai]

one thing to note, when I had mine roadforce ballanced and rotated the one that came out of the spare position they could not get the road force right, I think becasue of the visible indents on the sidewalls. one would think the longer a tire is left under there the worse it will be.

I have put 50K on my 265/70 Michilin LTX's, the PO put an unknown ammount on them, I have rotated them three times, I got nail in one it went to the spare position and stayed there, do not think I will rotate them much more, I want to see some tread wear, dam undersized michilins still look like they have more than 50% tread left.

 

[Koffer]

I do the Junk tire rotation
take them off, toss them in a pile , put back on where ever

 

[FirstToy]

Yes, 5 tire rotation for me too. 20% more life out of all tires to get the most out of them.

 

[bamachem]

Yes, 5 tire rotation for me too. 20% more life out of all tires to get the most out of them.

1. you don't get "20% more life out of all tires", but you WILL get 25% more life/miles out of the entire SET.
4 tires + 1 tire = 5 tires. you add 25% Tread Life to the SET, NOT to each individual tire.

2. you will get 25% more time/miles out of a set of tires since there's 5 instead of 4, but you also have to pay 25% more for 5 instead of 4 when it comes time to replace them.

the only REAL advantage of doing this is to get the most out of a MATCHING set of tires. you DON'T get more wear from a single tire and you DON'T save any money by doing this.

 

[FirstToy]

Thanks Capt. Shaving Hairs
20% more out of the SET of tires.

Here's a cut n paste for all the lawyers

The vehicle can also be driven 20% more miles before replacing the original set of five tires becomes necessary. This ensures that all five tires wear out before they should be replaced due to old age. And when this time comes, the driver can select from the latest tire technology when replacing the vehicle's set of five matching tires.

Additionally five tire rotation results in equally distributed use that will help maintain equivalent tread depths on all five tires at all times. When applied to many four-wheel drive and all-wheel drive vehicles, this is required to prevent driveline damage if a flat tire forces a new spare to be put into service with partially worn tires on the other three wheel positions.

 

[bamachem]

Blah-Blah-Blah. Yak-Yakitty-Yak. PFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTT!

 

[spartan]

Nope - I'm too lazy. But I do air the spare regularly and rotate it on it's mounting so I don't get flat spots in the sidewall.

 

[ed97fzj80]

This Tire Rack write-up shows good ways to go about it.

 

[OZCAL]

I do include the spare.

 

[Aussie cruiser]

This set of tyres I only do a 4 tyre rotation because spare is same size but different brand . Last set all 5 were the same so all 5 were rotated the spare was rotated through the left side which minised the the miles on the front left because were I live the Council has gone crazy with roundabouts. The set before all had excessive wear on the outer edge from all the right hand turns on roundabouts.

 

[landtank]

in the past I've done the seasonal 4 tire random rotate method. Now with one set of directional tires on it won't be seasonal or random, just drive them.

 

[bamachem]

This Tire Rack write-up shows good ways to go about it.

good suggestions and info, but once again, their nubers are off.

it's 25%, not 20%. here's why:

if you have 4 tires, and you get 40k out of them, then you put 40k on each tire. if you have 8 tires and rotate full sets (one set on for 5k miles, then the other set - full swaps), then you would get 80k out of the 8 tires. if you rotated them in by pairs or singles every 5k miles, then you'd still use all the tires by the end and you'd still get 80k out of the 8 tires.

what am i getting at? 4 tires = 40k. with 8 tires, you get and additional 40k.

with that same logic, if you had only 6 tires and you rotated them into the mix, then you would cut that 40k mile extension in half, since you only have half the extra tires. (see where this is going?)

with 6 tires, you get 20k extra. using that same logic, with 5 tires you would get half that, or 10k extra.

now for the hard math.

40k + 10k = 50k total mileage.

50k / 40k = 1.25 or 125% for a 25% increase

by their logic, you pay 25% more for that extra matching tire and only get 20% more mileage out of the set, so it's LOOSING MONEY. when you do the math correctly, you see that it's a wash on the value of the tires. you don't save any money by having 5 tires instead of 4, but you do get to wait longer inbetween trips to get new ones.




now THAT was a waste of time, wasn't it???