Last Thursday, I had a local shop rotate my Sumitomo HTRZ-II's for the first time, front to rear, after about 10K miles on them (I know I should have done them sooner.) Plenty of tread on both axles, I examined them visually as the guy was changing them, no bubbles or weird wear signs. However, when I left for my 350 mile road trip the next morning, they were noticeably louder, especially the fronts. I thought they might "wear in" but even after the return trip, they're still roaring compared to how they were before the rotation. Will they break in? or should I consider moving them back and just letting the fronts wear out first? Thanks.

 

Nope.

You waited too long.

You probably would be better off to put'em back where they were.

At least that's how it worked for me.

 

Thread on it here - see my post #11.........

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...rotations.html

 

Thanks. The two articles you linked seemed to contradict each other, the first saying it's better just to replace the fronts when they wear out...but the TireRack article seems to promote the front to rear rotation. I think I probably just waited too long, so I guess I'll move them back and see if they go back to "normal." The tires were cheap enough (from TireRack incidentally) that I might try something else when they wear out anyway.

 

check the rotation arrows on all tires to make sure they are mounted correctly.

 

I think the issue is not whether to rotate, the issue is whether to rotate after 10,000 miles. Very different issues. By 10K the tires have acquired some wear patterns that cannot be reversed by rotation.

While Mini does not recommend rotation, most find that rotating the tires every 3K to 4K miles helps to ensure even wear and maximum mileage from the tires.

But after 10K, you are pretty well stuck with leaving them alone or you're going to find that the wear patterns will produce a lot of noise -- at best. In other instances, you may also find vibration and some cupping by making the change.

There is even another issue now, you haven't told us how many miles you've driven since rotation, but if its been a couple of thousand, you may find that they will be noisy even if you move'em back.

I wish some of the tire experts would chime in on this, because all I have to offer is my experience of having done most everything wrong at least once, including rotating tires with 10 to 12 K miles on them.

 

id wait it out. they may get quieter again. You did wait too long though.

My Dad always used to do that, and they would sometimes quiet back down.

Also check the air pressure... sometimes they like to add air and that could contribute

 

For me, that's the big bugger about not rotating. If you want to try different tires, you only get two, and the rears will outlast the front probably 4-1.

 

Just a few more details. The shop that swapped them for me is an old school neighborhood garage with only the owner working. I stood there watching as he manually jacked up the car a side at a time and swapped them out, no air checked or added. I did check air pressure when I got home 5 minutes away and they were all set to 35psi where I like to run them. My round trip over the weekend was close to 800 miles (Houston to Abilene) so I'm kind of figuring they're not going to "wear down" now. Totally my fault, I've always tried to rotate at 5K miles and that keeps the wear pretty even and might squeak out a few more miles with performance tires. The guy charges me $20 to swap them and it's more efficient for me than doing it myself so I'll probably go back this afternoon and move them back. I'll be sure to let ya'll know if the noise goes away after putting them back. Lessons learned.

 

If you can find a really good performance shop, they may be able to "shave" the tread on the tires to bring them back to being perfectly round. You may lose a bit of tread initially, but you may find that the actual wear will increase as a result.

It may be worth a try.

 

It took me about a week before I had time to do it, but I had the tireman rotate the tires back to their original positions a couple of days ago. He was skeptical, but the noise that started when I first moved them went away as expected. Lesson learned, if you're going to rotate your tires, do it every 3-5K miles, don't wait 10K+.