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Old 08-22-2012, 08:09 AM   #4 (permalink)
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That's why you should rotate tires at the first sign of any wear pattern. Toyota kept telling me they needed to rotate tires at 5k miles. That's rediculous unless you are trying to hide another problem with rotation. You can usually tell what needs to be done by the wear pattern. Typically a FWD car will wear the shoulders of the front tires, slightly more on the outside than the inside, especailly is you agressively drive through turns. I find it usually is about 20k plus miles. I wouldn't trust any dealer to rotate my tires 20 times in 100k miles without stripping a lug nut.

Rear wear will be even with the shoulders remaining fairly sharp, again depending on your agressiveness in turns. Front to rear (same side) rotation is the solution.

If you are super cheap and don't have icy winter issues, and a matching spare (not a space saver) then buy one tire that matches the spare, drive the car until the fronts are bald, put one bald tire in the trunk and the spare and new tire on the front. On many cars you can go 100k plus miles with only one additional tire, and you don't need to have a new tire in the trunk with bald tires on the ground.

regards
Mech
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