Hi! I am pretty ignorant when it comes to vehicle maintenance, but I'm learning!

It seems fairly straightforward to rotate my own tires. What all do I need to do this? I would think a torque wrench, and some kind of way to hold the side of the car up that I'm working on as the manual states the rotation should simply be front -> back.

Any tips?

Tom

 

A large breasted women to hold your . . . opps, wrong forum.

 

I picked up a 3 ton craftman jack for like $100 at sears around fathers day, no im sorry xmas. came with 2 stnads as well. sears has deals all the time though. I bought a craftman digitork as well, 1/2 drive $100. and a cheap breaking bar from anywhere. this is def good to have. also, it beats taking to the dealer cause they charge like $30 to rotate. and they scrathce the lug holes, i know from experience, aholes.

 

funky - You read the manual correctly; front to rear is the way.

If you don't have jackstands, etc, on hand, yet want to rotate anyway, and are willing to add an extra 'jackup' on each side, you can go this route:

Jack up the front, take off the front wheel, put the spare on temporarily, let the front down, jack up the back, replace the rear wheel with the one from the front, tighten the lugs loosely, lower the back, torque the back wheel to manual specs (75 or 80 lbs? It tells in the owner's manual), jack up the front again and replace the spare with the wheel from the rear, tighten the lugs loosely, lower and torque to specs.

Repeat for the other side.

Cumbersome, but it works for me. And you are so right about dealers usually having no respect for lug nuts. Some neandertholic dealers actually use an air wrench.

 

Thanks for the reply. So basically I just jack it up (where, in the middle somewhere?) and then place the two stands under each of the "jack points". Then lower the car down onto the stands?

Do I lift it so the tires just come off the ground?

Tom

lightonthehill: We posted about the same time. That's a good suggestion. I forgot about the spare Using this method, I would only need to get myself a torque wrench, and I guess a breaking bar(?). Little more work, but less $$$ Thanks.

 

Is it a good/bad idea to use the spare tire in the rotation as well? (spare tire same size as rest) (have done one rotation at abt 12K and now at 21K and will be doing the rotation soon)

dont like to see a good tire waste!

 

tubells - My SL also has a full size tire and wheel, both of which match the four 'on the ground'. I plan to do what I have always done; just rotate the four on the ground as usual, then when new tire time comes, buy only three new ones (just like the ones that came on the car), and use the spare as the fourth tire. I clean up the best of the four worn tires, keeping it as the new spare.

Of course, it is also possible to include the spare in rotations from day one, as these OEM tires are not unidirectional.

 

i'm about to do this as well for my car.

i bought 2 sets of jacks and will loosen all the nuts a little bit before rotation. then jack up all 4 mount points and do the job.

lightonthehill's method works, but for a little more money, i can save quite a bit of time.

fyi, i bought 2 sets of 2ton jack lifts. it should do the job well.

 

Don't jack it in the middle. In the owners manual it shows you where you should jack it from.. it is just in front of the rear tire and just behind the front. if you look under the car you will see a ridge just inside from the edge of the car, and if I remember correctly there are 2 notches on it in these arease showing you where to place the jack.

Actually as I wrote this I looked it up on the ESM. Here is the image for garage jack points... I hope I don't get in trouble for this :-)



So the garage jack points are actually in the subframes for the front a rear suspension. In the front it is on the subframe on either side of the flex hose on the exhaust pipes... and the rare it is in the middel between the rear tires.

 

Picking up a torque drive this evening, what size socket should I get?

Also do you really have to rotate front to back? I've always done a criss-cross pattern.

 

blackmax4 - The X rotational pattern was standard for the old balloon tires, the old straight ply style of tire, and also for bias belted tires. But the 'experts' recommend front-to-rear rotation for radial tires, whether asymetrical, bidirectional or unidirectional.

Early radials were known to be subject to failure when driven in both directions. It seems long-term observation indicates even modern radial tires are slightly less prone to structural failure when used in only one direction. I don't know if studies have been published, but when tire manufacturers and vehicle manufacturers both agree, there could be a reason.

Having said that, there are those who swear by the X rotation, and I have seen several posters on this board who still use the X rotational method.

Your choice.

 

When asking Nissan about maintaining my car myself effecting warranty, and he used rotating tires as an example of needing a dealer because "...some things like rotating your tires, you need to balance and align them. I doubt you have the equipment to do that..." I didn't reply to that. I thought you just switched the front with the back (keeping on same side) and torque to 80.

Balance and align for rotating? Is this necessary?

 

I rotate my own tires, also change over my winter rims when the time comes.

I can not stress enough the importance of a deep socket! A regular socket is not really deep enough to reach the bottom of the shaft to put the nuts back on. It may result in some scratches on your rims.

Alternately you can take extreme care, perhaps using an extention....I went and picked up a deep socket to avoid problems.

CM.

 

You don't have to have them balaned, but it is a good idea to do it at the time because A) you got the tires off B) usually by the time it's time to rotate it's a good idea to balance too. Look into costco or sams club for balancing the tires. Actually, try to find someone who own a Hunter balancing machine, that is what Nissan says to use to balance the tires to avoid problems. When buying new tires note to make sure whoever balances the tires takes those damn stickers off. If you don't take the sticker off and balance the tire you will have an unbalanced tire once the sticker wears off. Small details, but adds up on larger size tires. Also, if you don't balance when you rotate the tires you may exeperience the shimmy problem!!!