Tire rotation patterns

My manual says to use a front to back, back to front, no crossover tire rotation pattern. Is this really the best way to go if our tires are non-directional? Any reason not to swap two tires from side to side?

I have the OEM Michelin LTXs on my 2018. I normally try to rotate every oil change, but I missed a rotation and went 16k or so miles without rotating. The tire that was in the rear right position wore down a lot during that time. The wear is even all the way across, not just on the corners or anything like that. I've rotated them now, just front to back as recommended. Now I'm left with three tires that still have a lot of life left in them and one tire that is very near to failing the penny test. Not sure how I'm going to handle that yet, though I lean toward replacing all four and start even and fresh.

Anyway, unless there was just some inherent problem with that particular tire, the rear right position seems to take a lot of fast wear. Normally I wouldn't expect missing one rotation to wear a tire down that bad that fast. So if we're supposed to just do a front to back rotation, the right side would still develop wear quite a bit faster than the left set.

Are others experiencing that?

 

I've always just rotated the front to the back and back to the front. Always worked for me

 

https://www.tundras.com/threads/stock-tires-4-or-5-tire-rotation.9385/

 

I think I always did with my Tacomas as well. This is my first Tundra. Maybe that tire was just substandard that allowed it to wear down so much faster than the others.

 

always done the usual 4 tire, back to front rotation. And always rotate them every 5k miles, it really makes a difference in how long they last.

 

Keeping tires on the same side is the Toyota way...it's just the way they've recommended since changing sides and direction of rotation was a NO-NO for belted tires.

I don't think modern tires are really that sensitive to changing direction of rotation, but Discount Tire strictly follows the old same-side regime afaik. If I suspected unusual pattern wear that changing sides would help, I would consider changing sides. But...You said your right rear wore faster, but evenly. You may have something else going on at that position that changing sides won't really help.

 

FWIW, I've found cross rotating works well if you tow a lot. Most of my miles are spent towing fairly heavy and I have less shoulder wear / tires last longer when I cross rotate.

 

Do you find with towing a lot that you get a lot of wear on a single tire like that?

Towing definitely doesn't equate to most of my miles, but I do tow a fair bit, especially this year.

 

I rotated a set of Nitto TG2s on my 4Runner every 5k miles for 50k miles by moving the rears to the opposite side’s front and moving the fronts straight back.

Those tires still looked great and still had plenty of tread life. Wonder how long they would’ve lasted...

 

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by single tire--do you mean a specific tire location or a specific brand/model?

WRT more wear front or rear/left or right, it's hard to say because I rotate every 5k. It could be cross rotating has nothing to do with anything because I haven't controlled for all variables, but my wear is definitely more even beginning about the time I started crossing the tires. I tow a +/- 8500 boat w/o weight distribution (keep in mind boat trailer tongue weight is usually set up less than travel trailers) and a +/-8500 travel trailer with weight distribution. I also put on Firestone airbags a couple of years ago after running Timbrens for 5 or so years.

FWIW, at 111k miles, I'm on my fourth set of tires. My OEM tires (p-metric) were toast after less than 25k miles (can't remember the exact miles--retired due to shoulder wear). Then a set of Michelin LTX p-metrics lasted about 30k (retired due to shoulder wear and tread chunking). Then a set of K02 about 50k--I was thrilled (retired due to even tread wear). Right now I'm running Michelin LTX Defenders (LT)--too soon to say how they hold up as it's only been about 7000 miles. I'll probably move them to my wife's Sequoia when she needs new tires next year as I want to move back to KO2 or similar to do some off-road camping and exploring.

 

IMO

It will help by making the other tires wear faster whenever they're on the RR position, and at the same time, slowing down wear in the fast wearing one.

Worst case by identifying an actual issue with the suspect tire if it keeps wearing fast even in other corner.