I have about 11K on my MCS front tires are showing wear. Should I rotate them?

BAT

 

tires need rotating every 5 k miles.

 

yeah def. I think the rule of thumb is to rotate them every 5k miles but people at my dealership said every 7k. Either way I think it is time for you to rotate them.

Mark

 

sometimes, dealerships dont know SH*T

its just a fact of life lol

lets put it this way, they tried to tell me i needed a tranny when my CV joint broke!

 

Don't do it. You always want your best tires in the back, even if it is a front wheel drive car like the Mini. Naturally, the front tires will wear faster so if you rotate them, your best tires will wind up in front. Just let the fronts wear out to the point where you need to replace them. Then purchase two new tires. It is at this point that you rotate the two new tires with the two older tires -- so the new tires (the better pair) will wind up in the back where they belong. Just keep repeating this cycle ad nauseum.

That said, if you're getting uneven wear, check tire pressure and alignment. Properly inflated and aligned tires should wear evenly on your Mini (mine did).

 

Your are not suppose to "rotate" the tires in a Mini what you are suppose to do is just switch the front's to the rear and rear's to the front do not rotate them clockwise or counter-clockwise. This will maintain an even wear all around and maintain the best possible tread on the both front driving wheels at all times.

 

The old front-to-rear and rear-to-front rotation method is a holdover from the early days of radial tires. The thought was that if you reverse the rotation direction of the tires the belts would break. If there ever was any truth to this, it is certainly not true with modern tires. The fact is that BMW and (by default) MINI does not recommend rotating tires. For absolute best handling, the tires should stay in a single position. The downside is that they will wear out quickly. BMW feels that optimum handling is worth accelerated tire wear. The truth is that for most street driving the handling difference would not be noticeable. For optimum wear, rotate your tires in a modified "X" pattern. The front tires will go straight back to the rear. The rear tires will be crossed to the opposite side and moved to the front. This method will allow the tires to be rotated to every position on the car.
Since MINI does not recommend rotating tires, it is not included in your free scheduled maintenance.

 

Rotate your tires front to back every 5K or so. I don't care what BMW says, my wife's brother is a BMW mechanic in Florida and he said don't bother rotating the tires. Well I was a wrench for 10 years I rotate my tires on the MINI. and the tires look great! I don't drive a $65K BMW M3...I drive a '05 MINI-S with 16K on it.
Dave S.
Bedford, OH

 

I rotate mine about every 5 to 7k , got just over 38k out of my last tires. Not too bad for performance tires .


Nik

 

So, it sounds as though there is a difference of opinion here. Why should the best tires always be at the rear?

 

u should quote & ask 911fan w/ur question

but 2 me i think its due 2 best traction.(during turns) ?????????
since it seems d ride is allready stiff up front but weak in d rear!

 

All,

Talked to Alex at Tire Rack on this same topic. He recommends 3K rotation interval for performance tires. I currently use Bridgestone S-03's, and was a little "late" (by about 1800 miles) in rotating them. He sez first rotation is critical for even wear.

Front to Rear is the only rotation option for any asymmetrical tire pattern. Tire Rack stocks the OEM Run-Flats as well, so ask him the skinny on rotation for those, as well.

My take on why you need fresh tread in the rear -- your fronts will wear quicker due to weight distribution, and the fact that they are the driving tires. The rear end follows the front, if you have sufficient traction. Bald tires in the rear would leave you with poor braking and tracking, and a rear end that "drifts" through turns, at a minimum.

Cheers,
matthew z

 

I have rotated my tires exactly one time. The day after doing it, I was doing a run on one of our more exciting twisty roads in Richmond, and spun the car. I wasn't going as fast as I had before, and the only thing different about the car was that the tires had been rotated.

There was no difference in the condition of the road, either.

I will never rotate tires again.

911Fan is correct: have your best treads in the rear. You have so little weight back there that any grip you can get could save your butt.

Now, if you're running on run-flats, then I would rotate them in order to get rid of them sooner, but I'd be extra cautious when driving twisties.

 

The reason that some say to keep the best tires on the rear is it can keep you from having a bad oversteer situation in an emergency situation. I actualy saw a video somewhere that showed 2 cars on a track, the one that had the bad tires on the back was definitely more apt to spin. There was nothing in the video that really talked about the kind of tires, the mileage, how long they had been in the respective poitions etc to know all the details.


Sounds like if the OP has gone over 11k without rotating, it is probably too late now and they will experience the condition described above. The best choice would be to buy 2 new tires for teh back and move the backs to the front.

I rotate mine every 5000 miles (before the wear pattern gets too much) and I feel like I am OK, traction wise, but do try to be careful and take it easy for the first 500 plus miles. Rotating every 3k would be even better, especially if you are an aggressive driver and tend to wear tires quick.

 

Yeah you gotta understand that if you're going to rotate your tires, you need to do it BEFORE you notice significant wear on your front tires. Also when you rotate, check to see if your tires are directional. Both my runflats and my current Yokohama's are directional, so "rotation" means switch front to back on each side--but never crisscrossing in an x pattern.

This has been hotly debated for many years now, and no one REALLY knows the answer. If tire wear is a concern rotate them. If you track or drive hard and are concerned about what rotating my do, then don't.

I've got a friend who's got nearly 50,000 miles on his original runflats and he rotates.

I got about 19,000 miles before my fronts were bald--I never rotated. I now have over 21,000 miles on my non runflats and I rotate every 3 to 5,000 miles, and they look better than my runflats did at 19,000 miles. I also drive pretty agressively both in the canyons and on the streets and while I'm experiencing some wheel slippage on hard starts, they still have lots of life left.

So if buying 2 new tires every 12- 20,000 miles is ok with you, then do what BMW recommends.

 

There is no harm in rotating your tires, but some cautions need to be observed.
Do not wait until drastic wear is observed!
If you have toasted a pair, replace them as opposed to moving them.
If the other pair have considerable wear as well, you'd be best served by replacing all four.
Remember that the opposite ends of the car have vastly different geometries as far as tire contact and thus wear are concerned. As a result, the surface of the tire where it contacts the road will "wear in" in a fashion best suited to the end of the car on which it is mounted.
After rotation, give the tires some time to "wear in" to their new positions, for they will have less than optimum grip due to their previously existing wear patterns. New tires need to "wear in" too.
Take it easy for a couple hundred miles after rotation (or new tire installation) & you should have no problems.

 

So what do you do if you want to put the rears on the front and get two new tires, but you also want to dump the runflats? I assume you'd have to either get two runflats so all four match, or get four non-runflats?

I think two different treads on front and back is a no-no, not to mention tow runflats and two regular.

 

Someone wrote into "Click & Clack" with this same question. Their advice was don't rotate. More trouble/cost/potential hazard than any negligible gain that might come your way in tire life. I had already rotated my 17" run-flats at 10k before I read this. No perceived difference. No I'm just running them till they run out.

 

There's nothing inherently wrong about it, and many cars run with asymmetric tires. As long as your dimensions are the same, you shouldn't have any problem, even if you only replace one tire.

Now, if you take it to the dealership and say you want to replace 1 run-flat, they won't do it. Supposedly that is somehow illegal.

But just because they won't do it, that doesn't mean you can't.

 

Interesting.

So if the choices are:

A) Rotate run-flats front to back at 16K (my current mileage).

or

B) Place rear run-flats on front and place two new non-runflats on rear.

The consensus is B?

The fronts currently have some wear on the outside shoulders. The right has more than the left, but I think it's from taking a lot of long left turns at intersections, as opposed to being an alignment issue.

 

I know you guys are all foolin' around here. . .I've watched cars go down the road, and I KNOW the tires rotate when you're drivin' . . . I've seen 'em!!

Rotatin' your tires. Good one!

 

I would say that is how it sounded to me as well. Mine are the same condition. I thought that maybe it was alignment, but two of the other Mini's a work hav ethe same wear patern on the outer shoulder. They are not Run Flats. Why move to non-Run Flats? Also Where to get new Tires? What Kind to replace the 17" Run Flats with.


Too Many Questions!!!!!!

Any one have any Ideas?

 

Now that I've thought about it more, I think the extra wear on the front right might be because that wheel is the one drive wheel that spins free when the wheels break loose. Cars that don't have a limited slip differential will have one of their drive wheels spin and the other one dead if there's no traction. If you have an LSD, both drive wheels will bite.

I still think the excessive number of long left turns I take (at wide intersections) has something to do with it too.

People usually go to non-runflats because they ride softer, offer slightly better traction, and are cheaper.

There are tons of choices for replacement tires. Take a look at the Tire Rack web site, for starters.

 

A good place to look for possible tires is this site. They have a nice size comparison chart with available tires for each size.

www.1010tires.com


Art

 

There's another reason, too: run-flats offer you false hope. If your tire blows, will you notice it? When my right front tire went flat, all I knew was that the car was pulling to the right. It took miles before the TPMS light came on, and I was destroying that run-flat the whole time.

So, yes, the run-flat kept me in business for a day, but now it's useless. Whoop-dee do. I don't know if it's a local law, but around here you can't replace just one run-flat: you have to replace all 4 at once. That's an extremely expensive flat tire (~$1000) for the privilege of driving on the sidewalls for one day.

And if you have run-flats, why do you need a spare? Why did MINI see fit to put a donut on the Cooper?