First tire rotation coming up...what's the recommended rotation pattern?
 

With stock tires that came on the car, I'm assuming I want to just do front to back and back to front...not cross rotate?

Thanks!

That is what I plan to do in another 500 miles.

That's what the manual says, and what I did.

That's what it shows on page 8-38 of the owners manual. I wonder why some manufacture's have you cross them? I would think that would provide a more even wear!:confused::confused::confused:

FWD cars with non-directional tires you can do the 11 or the X. I tend to switch them up every other time.

From the 1940s until around the 1980s, the 'X' rotation method was fairly standard, except for some radials of the 1960s thru 1980s. You can still use the 'X' method, except (as k757 mentioned) with directional tires, which are denoted with a small arrow on the sidewall, pointing in the only direction that tire should turn.

As to the treadware benefits of the 'X' method, as compared with switching just with tires on the same side, that may have been true at one time, but with a properly aligned modern car, I would not expect to see any real difference in treadwear.

I personally stopped using the 'X' method back in the 1960s, when doing so resulted in the internal failure of several radial tires on my car. Reversing the direction of rotation of a tire does put additional internal stresses on the tire, and today's non-directional tires supposedly can handle that. But I feel keeping the tire rotating in the same direction may still give my tires a slightly better chance of survival. Just my opinion.

Great input from everyone..thanks. I think I'll just do the front to back scenario.

I always do the "X" rotation if I have non-directional tires. The 'keeping radials on the same side' is a holdover from an era where a few problems developed - but were never proven to be correlated to changing rotational direction of tires.

I have done the X on everything except the directional tires.

At which mileage do you normally rotate on the Maxima? Thanks!

Some folks rotate at 5K. Others rotate at 7.5K (mileage at which second oil change is scheduled in the manuals. A few wait until 10K, and then there is me; I rotate at 15K miles.

But I do measure the tread depth in each groove across the face of each tire every three months, and if I see any unusual wear, I find the reason, and fix it. Usually, either adding or subtracting a pound or two of air evens the wear out again. If I weren't keeping such close check on my tires, I would probably rotate at 7.5K miles.

The most common two reasons for uneven tread wear are:

1 - Wrong air pressure for type of driving. Too much air pressure causes the middle of the tread to wear faster than the edges of the tread. Too little pressure causes the edges of the tread to wear faster than the middle of the tread.

2 - Lots of turning, especially at speed. The edges of the front tires do a huge amount of work when turning a car, especially if the turns are very sharp, and that often results in more wear on the outside edges of the front tire tread. Tire rotation spreads this wear between the front and rear tires.

Whether we use the same-side system or X system of rotation makes no difference with either of those two problems, but I will always be a same-side rotator, as I see no measureable advantage to changing the direction in which the tire rotates. Additionally, common sense tells us that if there is even the slightest weakness anywhere in the structure of a tire, changing the direction of rotation adds to the probability the tire will fail.

tire rotation
 

this is exactly what i was gonna say. i work part-time at an america's tire, well that's what we call discount tire here in cali but its the same company my paychecks say discount tire on them. the rotation we recomend an asymetrical tires which is what we have is to do a cross roto and then front to back and do so every other time, this way every tire has touched every corner of your veichle by the second rotation. this way they All wear evenly. asymetrical meaning they are tires meant to be mounted a specific side facing outwards, check the side way and it you see the word "inwards" facing out go to your dealer and have them change it. believe it or not we get this often on people's new cars. the thread is intended to go a specific way on these tires and having it backwards will cause it to wear inproperly.

when you finally switch to directional tires, you'll find out there's only one way to rotate.

live the life & smoke em if u have em. :rolleyes: