All About Tire Rotation and Workshop scams

[Frederic]

After spending some time at various tire workshops with my cars (both sedan and 4x4) and seeing the poor workmanship that goes on in most of these shops, i wanted to discuss the pros and cons of tire rotation on my cars.

The advertised pros:

• Longer thread life
• Better handling
• Ensuring even distribution of tread wear
• Can prevent blowouts by being able to spot tire issues earlier. 
• Ability to activate your spare tire as well and rotate it along.

 

On the world wide web, you don't usually come across the cons, but i came up with the following ones that i have experienced personally. For these main reasons i have decided against tire rotation:

• Wrong torquing of the tires. 99% of all shops here use the impact gun and go nuts with endless "jugga-juggas" and ruin the tread of your studs. On my 2021 Patrol 3 out of the 6 studs were completely ruined in such a short period. Even worse when after doing this, they bring out the torque wrench and you see it clicks from the first time. This basically means it was over-torqued by the impact gun and now the torque wrench has no function anymore!
• Tire rotation will mean wheel alignment and sometimes balancing as well, and again the majority of the shops i have been to even manage to screw this up. Been to countless shops where they even have a laser alignment setup but still decide to use their eyes and ears only, resulting in making things even worse. Even balancing which anyone should be able to do seems to be difficult here as half of the time they are not paying attention. The guys that do actually use the laser system are 50/50, means 50% of the guys know what they are doing, and the other 50% just screw and unscrew bolts until they see something appearing in green.
• Upselling. While you are at the tire shop, often they will start moaning that "Sir, your tires are too worn" while they have no clue and just try to sell you stuff (their bosses push them into this). The so-called free alignment check when purchasing tires is just a scam because they mention "CHECKING alignment is free, but DOING the alignment is 150dhs". And i have experienced this recently in a very reputable shop. Often the car is worse after the alignment than when it came in.
• Time loss. I don't like spending afternoons or evenings in a tire shop.

 

Let's have a look now at the advertised pros and see if we can punch a hole in them:

• Longer thread life: Quite obvious on a rear wheel driven car that those tires will wear out faster and can be moved to the front to have a bit longer life. That can be done in one go and not with a rotation every 10,000km. On a 4x4 this would also apply if you are driving in 2H on the road, but on a permanent 4x4 like a Prado perhaps the wear on the tires front vs back will be less obvious.
• Better handling. If you have tires that are in decent shape and properly inflated, i do not believe handling to have a big impact.
• Even distribution of tire wear. Correct. like i mentioned rear wheels vs front wheels. But if your tires are wearing out unevenly on the same axles you have alignment issues and should deal with those, rather than rotating the tires around.
• Ability to activate your spare tire. True. My spare tire is never in action but i actually prefer it like that and keep it covered at all times. If i replace that tire every 4-5 years i can personally live with that.

 

Now, i could be totally going wrong with my statements here, hence i would love to see other members feedback of their experiences and why they choose or not choose to rotate their tires. 

 

[Krishna R]

@Frederic Great post on an untouched issue.

As offroaders, we need wheel alignment more frequently than those who don't.

My experience with wheel alignment mirrors yours. I have been to countless shops, even the ones that "specialize" in offroad cars. They just cant get it right. I have had some tell me that i have to change the upper arms and suspension to make it straight.  

Finally, i got a garage which isn't "specialized" in offroad cars that got it right. Just the skill of the mechanic I would say. he had a "Hunter" laser alignment machine. I dont know if that makes a difference and he was a bit more expensive than the others but cry once, right?

 

[Frans M]

@Fredericthat is true. I had the same issues with the tire shops. And during the FWA (front wheel alignment), they mostly didn't want to adjust the camber and caster (probably they dont really know 🙃). What they did was only for toe in adjustment of tie rods. Only one shop that I finally found adjust everything in Sharjah, and they torqued the bolts properly, but not sure now if still the same servicemen work there.

[Simon D]

@Frederic from my experience , if you drive 20,000 Km+ on your new tires then dont rotate them as it will only cause more issue problems than preventing them . unless you have an AWD .

Personally i always make sure to rotate them every 10K as in couple occasions i figured out that i have tire damage during the rotation process. 

during the studs installation i always ask them not to completely tighten them with the impact gun and leave at least half the turn to be done manual . 

but i agree with you that its really hard to find a proper tire shops

 

[Gaurav]

I agree with Simon that doing the rotation is better than not doing it.

I have been doing rotation on all 3 sets of Geo G012 and each set lasted 3 years with 40 -50k kms. For the fourth set of Geo G015, I was lazy or forgetful and had barely 15k-20k before 3 punctures. Yes, it could be coincidental that G015 wasn't as good as G012 (Made in Japan), but still, I believe doing the tire rotation is better. 

[DP1011]

I vote in favor of rotation. In last 13 yrs of driving, Initially as a NB i dint pay attn to rotation and I had to replace tyres 10k earlier than what i would have. When enquired, (from a reliable source) The reason was rotation, and since then, i make sure rotation done. When On road i was getting it done 10k, but with offroading, am doing it 8k itself. 

however, always I got it done in my physical supervision and also on weights loss plus alignment. Weightloss makes a hige difference based on what I understand. Vibration is one of those symptoms. 
 

i guess it all narrows down to how reliable ur garage is.

[Mark B]

Thanks for this and yes you’re right, the tire shops here do a shocking job! Had new wheels put on few weeks back and the balancing weights were over lapping 🤦🏻‍♂️ had them changed, then first week out in the dunes weights came off shoddy work is a big issue!