After doing a successful oil change its time for me to rotate the tires. I cant seem to find a good how-to besides from edmunds. Can some1 gimme some tips or links ? Also how do i balance the tires and can some 1 explain to me why its necessary to balance tires and why would the weight of the wheels change Thanks.

 

You cant balance tires unless you have a computerized balancing machine sitting in your garage. You need to have the wheels balanced when you put on tires because tires are rubber and the rubber is not "perfect" all the way around. This ensures it becomes perfect on a rotational spin and no vibrations. This is even done on high speed pulleys at times.

Rotating tires? Move the front to the back and the back to the front. Simple. Get two jacks, jack it up, switch the tires, and then jack it down, and repeat on otherside.

You do not need to balance tires after a rotation. Only when you feel you are getting vibration at a "certain" speed or you just put on a new tire.

Dixit

 

After rotating my 17's for the 4th time (every 7 k miles) I havent had to rebalance them yet...still smoothe But they may need it before long, who knows...I just go by how they feel at highway speeds.

 

Discount tires gave me a deal on lifetime balancing for $32 and of course tire rotation is free there. I also balance every 8K miles!

 

Thanks for the info Dixit. One last question hopefully some1 can answer, where does alignment come in to play ? Is alignment the same as balancing tires ?

 

isnt it recommended to rotate the tires from front to back as well as side to side?

i read somewhere on here a long time ago and it said to do this:

- move front passenger side to rear passenger side
- move rear passenger side to front driver side
- move front driver side to rear driver side
- move rear driver side to front passenger side

the rotation makes an X pattern.

 

Alignment comes in play when you lower you car, or you feel your tires are wearing unevenly. Alignment is exactly what it is called. Balancing is litterally balancing the wheel as it spins.

Alignment is when the wheel is straight the car should be straight along with the tire should be perfect flat on the road and camber and all these other techincal adjustments.

Dixit

 

This used to be recommend back in the day, but no longer, reason being is alot of tires are now directional and you DO NOT want to turn them around. This causes problems with the Metal "wires" in the tires.

Dixit

 

That's what I thought...

I thought Dixit's way was used for REAR-WHEEL drive vehicles. That's how they rotated my Blazer's wheels.

G

 

Ask alot of tire pros. All the new High performance tires only recommend front to back and back to front rotation. This is clearly because you do not want to disturb the metal wires in the tire. In a sense they have already been "seated" in place over the miles, no need to move it around and cause more excess wear.

Also because as I said clearly due to how alot of tires are DIRECTIONAL tires. Can only rotate them one way.

Dixit