Benefits of Tyre Rotation and How Often You Should Rotate Them

One of the best and cheapest ways to extend the life of your car’s tyres is through rotation. Car tyre rotation, as the name suggests, is swapping of rear and front car tyres. What it does is that it spreads the wear uniformly across all four tyres. Tyre rotation is recommended at regular intervals (more on it later in the blog). In short, you should consider following this practice because it can enrichen your driving experience and keep you safe on the road.

Let’s discuss a bit more about tyre rotation and its many benefits and importantly, how often you should do it.

Car Tyre Rotation

Let’s discuss the most important aspect of this first:

How Often/When to Rotate Car Tyres?

You should consider swapping tyres every 10,000 kms. However, keep in mind that this is under normal conditions. If you notice uneven wear on your tyres, you shouldn’t wait to hit 10,000 kms on your speedometer, you should swap tyres immediately. 

If you have recently swapped tyres because they were creating a humming sound, and you’re still getting that sound, you need to take your car for wheel alignment. Tyre rotation alone won’t stop that sound.

You shouldn’t wait to hit 10,000 kms before you swap tyres in one other case – if you drive a commercial vehicle, over long distances, carrying heavy loads. Or you drive a car at high speed over long distances. 

Why Car Tyre Rotation?

Though we’ve mentioned it briefly, one of the main reasons why you should consider following this practice for long lasting tyres is that:

• Front wheels wear a lot quicker than rear wheels
• Swapping them – meaning moving rear wheels to the front and the front wheels to the rear would ensure equal wear and gets you the most of their tread life.

How to Rotate Tyres?

It is recommended that you let a professional handle this. However, if you want to do this yourself, you can. You don’t need any specialized equipment. 

Here’s how to do it (for front wheel drive cars):

1. If the tyres are of the same size – Only in this case you can rotate the tyres front-to-back.

2. When moving front tyres to the rear, the tyres should remain on the same side. For example, after rotation what was front passenger side tyre would now become rear passenger side tyre, etc.

3. However, when the rear tyres are moved forward, they are crossed. For example, the rear right tyre will become the front left tyre, etc.

Here’ how to rotate tyres for rear wheel drive cars:

4. Rear tyres are moved forward and remain on the same side. Unlike in front wheel drive cars, they are not crossed.

5.  Front wheels are moved to the rear and crossed. 

And this is how you rotate tyres in 4✕4 vehicles:

6. All four tyres are rotated and crossed.
7. Once done, repeat the process with your front left tyre and rear right tyre. 

With this, you have successfully prolonged the life of your tyres. 

We hope you found this short guide useful. Do let us know, if you have any tips or suggestions of your own.  And if you are looking to buy new or used tyres, you can find them on OLX Pakistan.