I was told by the Mini Service Department that the 2004 MC's do not need their tires rotated because of the type of tires. Is this true and is it because they are run flats? I have never heard this before and I know if anyone knows....someone in MiniLand would tell me.

Thanks!

 

A bald faced lie, that. Of course you should rotate your tires, the more frequent the better. I typically rotate at four thousand mile intervals (always torquing the lugs down to 90 lb.-ft.) and after sixteen thousand miles on the tires, their wear is even and I'll estimate that I have some eight to twelve thousand miles left in 'em.

 

The only restriction may be on cross rotating if you have direction tires.

You certainly would want to rotate from front to back on the same side. All front wheel drive cars are hard on front tires. On my first service visit @ 15K miles, my service advisor asked if I wanted tires rotated. I had Pirelli run-flats.

 

they would tell you that. The dealers do not rotate them for free is all. I wondered about the same thing, but wondered too long and as a result of waiting to see if they were going to do it at the 25 thousand mile service, they did not and the front tires were worn to the point that they needed replacing. take care!

 

Some dealers say that because when you rotate the tires, it *sometimes*

make howling noises until the tread wear to the camber settings and customers sometimes notice it and complain.

But in reality, you will want to rotate your tires every 7k miles for a commuter
and more often on weekend cars driven spiritedly.

 

MINI supplies magic tires where each tire can sense how much wear the other has and wear itself out as fast or slow as them. :-p

 

:smile: Yeah, and at night if you water them with a special chemical MINI treatment they grow the rubber right back, so why worry, eh?

 

Rotate your tires, take it to a local tire place. They don't even charge me anymore, I just tip the tech.

 

I didn't rotate my runflats as I followed MINIUSA's recommendation. I got about 19,000 miles out of the front tires and the rears still had atleast 75% left. I just bought new tires--Yokohama AVS ES100 and will be rotating every 3,000 miles now!

 

This is why SERVICE people and dealerships get bad reputations. I'm 100 miles range of HORRFIC traffic from the dealership. I want to do the right thing for my car. Thank goodness for you "Miniacs" and your wisdom.

Thank you!

 

Checking tire pressure with each gas fill up and rotating tires regularly about twice a year is quite reasonable. Your local costco will do the rotation for free for members every 6000 miles or so. You can pay for computer balancing of the front two wheels each time for extra which is good as the tires wear.

Generally the front tires will wear faster. You rotate so that this doesn't happen and you can keep each tire about even. The stock runflats (edit: if not directional) can be rotated using a front wheel drive four wheel tire rotation pattern. (edited:Front wheels go to the back on each side and each back wheel crosses over to the other side and to the front.)

Some non runflat tires can be directional like the Yokohama ES100s and those must stay on the same side on the car. So front to back on the same side only.

For those who have lowered their cars and not done alignment then a rotation every 3000-4000 miles helps the negative rear camber to not wear too much on the tires.

 

As others have stated so well, it's BS from MINI.

FWD cars are especially sensitive to big differences in front and rear tread in the rain. I know, I backed into a tree 12 years ago at about 60 mph because the front tires were new, and the backs were worn.

I rotate my sedans at 10k and the MINI at 5k (based on driving "style"!).

regards,
Red

 

I have the 17" RSA RFs. I rotate front to back only (3x in 16k), and it works well. I would not suggest cross-rotation. I accidentally crossed them once, & it drove like crap! Studying the sidewalls, I found two of the tires were marked "E15L" & two marked "E15R" (under the "E"s in Eagle). With the "R"s on the right & "L"s back on the left all was good again.
Be careful for the first day or two after rotation, as your car may behave a little differently at first. I know of a guy who totalled his MINI immediately after rotation - lost it in a corner. Please allow the tires time to bed in before you defy the laws of physics.
Best - Bodinski

 

Slight correction: Some stock performance runflats are directional: the 17" Dunlop Sport 9000 tires for instance. I am not sure about the performance tires on the 16" wheels, so someone else will have to chime in about them.

Any tire that is a directional tire will have an arrow printed on the sidewall that indicates the proper rotational direction.

I believe that the all-season runflats that MINI uses are not directional and can be rotated using the 4 wheel tire rotation pattern.

 

Oops. Sorry.

Always check if your tires are directional. Runflat or not.
There are some new tires I see on the newest MINIs including Eagle RSA runflats

 

Couple trains of thought.

Don't rotate. Buy more fronts than rears.

Rotate and buy equal front and rear.
Long run, which costs more?

I think all radials once ran in one direction need to continue to be run in the same direction. So, rotate same side front to rear and rear to front.

Rotated my es100's at 3000 miles (front to back) and it looks like they'll be gone at about 7000 with reasonably even tread wear.

 

That is the standard rotation pattern for REAR-wheel drive cars. I believe that the preferred pattern for FRONT-wheel drive is the front wheels go to the back on each side and each rear wheel crosses over to the other side and to the front.

 

If you rotate, do it at least every 5K miles. I read in another thread about someone who waited to rotate until 10 or 12K miles and it was too late, the tech wouldn't rotate because the wear was so uneven; as red put it so well it bears repeating:

I've rotated every 5K miles and have never had a problem. I'm on the stock 16's with Dunlop Sport 5000 runflats.

 

I got runflats and i got 15000 miles and no rotation yet. Is that bad??

 

It's not "bad". It just depends on what you want. It may be too late at this point to rotate, must check the wear on the front and compare to the back. If you plan on sticking with run-flats, then no biggie, just buy 2 when it's time and put them on the front. If you were planning on changing to something else, you'll be in the same position as OctaneGuy, 2 worn tires, 2 with much life left on them. In any case, you may be able to sell the 2 good ones.....

 

I'm having a brain damage day. You are correct.
see
http://www.tirerack.com/a.jsp?a=EZ3&url=/tires/tiretech/general/rotate.jsp
Will edit to correct my post. Sorry.
That's what happens when you get old

 

It is my understanding that Mini has wanted to engineer a low maintenance vehicle. This may have something to do with not having any recommended rotation schedule. If one did not rotate tires then it would be feasible. Keeping the same tire/size you would only have to replace two tires at a time. In my case I do not intend to replace the run flats. In an effort to keep even wear (really hate to remove tires that are only half worn), I rotated at 4800 and there was noticable wear on the front vs the rear. Did it myself with son and no cost:smile: . If my replacement tire satisfies me I may adopt the Mini theory of no rotation.

 

when i change tires i'm going to non-runflats, i got a spare. :smile:

 

>Checking tire pressure with each gas fill up
.
.

Check your tire pressure in the morning or while the car is cold.
I know minihuni is noting the check interval, but for
those newbies that interpret this incorrectly, you want to check
your tires while they are cold once every other week or so...BEFORE
you head out.

 

Good grief! Where do you put it?
I got a little 12V compressor that fits in one of the little storage compartments in the boot and some slime. (Notice my emphasis on little? I think it's actually a psychiatric diagnosis. Littlelightitis)
Lighter.
Smaller.
Probably won't do the job when I need it to!