Let’s talk tyres because let’s face it, without tyres, you aren’t going to get anywhere, which is why maintaining your tyres is key. The short answer is yes, you do need to rotate your tyres if you want to improve the overall performance of your vehicle.
What is a tyre rotation?
Tyre rotation is the process of taking your tyres and moving them around to create an even wear throughout all of your tyres. It’s great for managing your tyre tread wear, and the grating, scouring and scraping that happens while carrying your vehicle over the roads.
During a tyre rotation, you would move each tyre to a different position on your vehicle’s axles. For example, you would move the front right tyre to the back left position and so forth. This shuffle will help your tyres to wear more evenly. When you turn, break or take a corner too quickly, you use different areas of your tyre. If you continue doing what you’re doing on the same tyre, you will notice wear and tear eventually. If you take care of this sooner rather than later, by rotating, you could help to prevent a blowout or any grinding down to the wheel.
When you should rotate your tyres
It’s a good idea to rotate your tyres approximately every 10,000km / 6,000 miles. You might want to rotate them more frequently than this if you do or see any of this:
- High speeds
- Heavy load
- Long-distance driving
- Uneven wear
- Hummingbird sound
Should you notice your tyres doing any of the above, then frequent rotations could be the way forward for you for a little while.
What type of tyre rotation do you need?
Now, this is a good question because there are various ways that you can rotate your tyres, four to be precise. If you don’t want to figure it out by yourself, you could always rely on your mechanic.
Rear-wheel drive
Your rear tyres should be brought forward and remain on the same side. Your front tyres should be moved to the back of the car and crossed from one side to the other.
Front-wheel drive
The rotation for front tyres is similar to the above. They should be moved to the back and remain on the same side. The rear tyres should be brought forward and crossed from one side to the other, meaning that your rear left tyre will become your front right tyre.
4×4 cars
All four tyres should be rotated in a crossed direction. In this case, your right front tyre will become your rear left and your rear left will become your front right. Then you would repeat the process with your front left and rear right too.
If you know-how, it can be easy to rotate your car tyres yourself, it can be easy enough to do.
You don’t need any specialist tools, just some space and a few spare hours. Our top tip would be to always be to check your owner’s manual too for recommendations from your
You don’t need any specialist tools – just some space and a few hours. And always check your vehicle owner’s manual for any recommendations by your vehicle manufacturer.
