[twriter]

This question. I mean, with ICE cars, it was typically rotate the tires when you change the oil, and that tire rotation interval never changed as the oil change interval recommendation went from 3K to 15K miles as oil formulas moved from natural to synthetics and engines were built specifically for those synthetics.


Chevy recommends 7500. Why? Why not, say, 15K? 10K? 20K? What's real-life optimal? What's real-life sufficient?

 

[borkbork]

depends on how evenly you want your tires to wear. especially with electrics, the front tend to go pretty quickly because of the available torque that people love to use. 7500 is a nice round number, it works for me.

 

[redpoint5]

If you time it very well, you could rotate just once.

Really, if you're rotating every so often then you'll be fine. The whole point is for the tires to wear evenly so you aren't stuck with 1 or 2 worn out tire when all the rest have a lot of miles left on it. If the alignment is good, the main difference will be front to back, with the fronts wearing much quicker since all the power and most of the braking is there.

I rotate my tires when the fronts are noticeably more worn than rears. Sometimes I'll try to time it so I only rotate once so that they end up wearing down to an equal level when it come time to replace them.

Finally, both front tires should be about equal wear so that they aren't putting undue wear on the differential.

 

[JaxEVLyftUber]

I rotated on the 10s, at 10 and 20k and then let it slide until mid 40s and uneven wear became apparent - the fronts take a beating owing to use of all that lovely torque!


At 57, my fronts are still deeper than my rears owing to the long hiatus, and I'm also trying to be a bit more, umm, "mature" about the torque thing.


I expect to need all 4 new around 70, and I'll be hunting here for long-wearing replacements

 

[Sibilance]

I do five tire rotations. Matched wheel and tire spare on the wall gets shuffled in, so it is always roughly equivalent to what is in the car. A good hedge against having to buy two matched tires or have a new one shaved down if a tire can't be repaired late in it's life.

5000 to 7500 miles is my range. However I live in a place that eats tire tread, regularly travel dirt / loose gravel roads, and I have plenty of space to keep a fifth wheel and tools for doing my own rotations. Even with my rotation habits, I barely got 60k on the first set of tires on my gen1 Volt, and I will be happy if I get 50k miles on my oem Bolt tires.

If I lived somewhere with good roads made out of something other than caltrops baking to mercurial temperatures in the Texas sun, I would probably just rotate every 10k and just have a donut spare.

 

[Stovebolt6]

I rotate my tires twice a year regardless of mileage. The rotation coincides with the swapping of winter and summer wheels and tires. Whenever I pull the wheels off I mark their location so I'll know where to rotate them to when I put them back on roughly six months later.

 

[Mivo]

It isn't just Chevy's recommendation. The warranty on my Nokians requires 7,500 mile rotations.


On a side note- since the maintenance intervals for the vehicle overall are so far apart, having some sort of reminder system in the car would be great to have. Your infotainment screen links to a series of computers. Putting in an app to give you reminders based on a date or distance driven would be a simple software addition.

 

[Packard V8]

I rotate my tires twice a year regardless of mileage. The rotation coincides with the swapping of winter and summer wheels and tires. Whenever I pull the wheels off I mark their location so I'll know where to rotate them to when I put them back on roughly six months later.

X2 - we have winter tires on steel wheels and rotate them by tread depth. The deepest tread goes on the right front.

Even with my rotation habits, I barely got 60k on the first set of tires on my gen1 Volt, and I will be happy if I get 50k miles on my oem Bolt tires.

When I see these numbers on various fora, I'm amazed and puzzled.
Over the past sixty years, I've owned countless cars and trucks and have never, ever gotten 60,000 miles from a set of properly inflated and rotated premium tires, usually Michelin. Maybe not enough long highway commutes?

jack vines

 

[raitchison]

Even on a properly aligned car tires don't wear out evenly, a bit of engineered camber can mean that the inside or outside of a tire can wear faster on the fronts vs the rears.

Also on the Bolt consider that where most FWD ICEVs you'll have 100% of the acceleration traction and ~70% of the deceleration traction handled by the front tires where if you drive a Bolt and use L mode regularly it's probably more like >95% of the deceleration traction being handled by the fronts without the rears doing much.

Since I drive only about 7000 miles per year anyways I've decided to rotate my tires at 5000 miles, I know it's more often than needed but it's easier to keep track of it because if the odometer is at x5000 or x0000 miles it's time to rotate the tires.

Rotating the tires also gives me an opportunity to check the brakes & suspension components and thoroughly inspect the condition of the tires.

 

[Sibilance]

X2 - we have winter tires on steel wheels and rotate them by tread depth. The deepest tread goes on the right front.

When I see these numbers on various fora, I'm amazed and puzzled.
Over the past sixty years, I've owned countless cars and trucks and have never, ever gotten 60,000 miles from a set of properly inflated and rotated premium tires, usually Michelin. Maybe not enough long highway commutes?

jack vines

Depends on the car, and what you mean by premium tires, unfortunately.

On my MKV GTI, with high performance summer rated tires, I was lucky to get 20K out of a set. They were born to drive fast and die young. Made out of squish for lots of swish.

My Volt had OEM low resistance, low performance, pretty 'stiff' tires. Possibly made out of recycled bowling balls.

Another difference is that I drove my GTI like the sleeper car it was, and I drove my Volt like I had a baby in the car. Because... I often had a baby in the car.

Most of my miles are suburban / urban / low speed rural roads these days. The lower speed is kinder on possible alignment issues or the wear induced by camber, in my opinion.

I'm also a bit keen on making sure my alignment is as close to factory spec as possible. Look around, and when a local place has a sale on a 'lifetime' alignment package, go for it.

 

[Sean Nelson]

I simply don't rotate my tires. I have a pair of snow tires that go onto the front wheels in the winter - so they're on for about half of the year and the summers are on for the other half. That seems to match the wear on the rear tires closely enough that in 40 years of driving front wheel drive vehicles I've never bothered to rotate the tires.

 

[XJ12]

I simply don't rotate my tires. I have a pair of snow tires that go onto the front wheels in the winter - so they're on for about half of the year and the summers are on for the other half. That seems to match the wear on the rear tires closely enough that in 40 years of driving front wheel drive vehicles I've never bothered to rotate the tires.

I don't run snow tires, but usually never bother to get tires rotated. Actually prefer that all my vehicles need only two tires replaced at a time. Takes the sting out of the cost getting two replaced instead of four. Usually put the new ones on the front and move the older ones to the back. That's my idea of rotating tires.

 

[Packard V8]

I simply don't rotate my tires. I have a pair of snow tires that go onto the front wheels in the winter - so they're on for about half of the year and the summers are on for the other half. That seems to match the wear on the rear tires closely enough that in 40 years of driving front wheel drive vehicles I've never bothered to rotate the tires.

For forty years you've driven FWD cars with winter tires on the front only. Go buy a PowerBall ticket immediately while your unbelievable luck is still holding.

Actually prefer that all my vehicles need only two tires replaced at a time. Takes the sting out of the cost getting two replaced instead of four.

Back when, I had a friend who was convinced it saved him money to buy only a half-tank of gas at each stop.

jack vines

 

[XJ12]

Back when, I had a friend who was convinced it saved him money to buy only a half-tank of gas at each stop.

That's true with my Bolt if I'm doing a DCFC!

 

[twriter]

Perhaps I should note that my last two ICE cars were MINIs, a Coupe and a Roadster. Both FWD, both with plenty of torque themselves (with the Roadster being the turbo, even more torque on the front wheels with that one), and I only had need to rotate when I did an oil change, every 15K miles or so. Even then, the front-to-back wear did not seem all that uneven over time.



There's a part of me that thinks, should side-to-side wear be even, I should just not rotate until the fronts need replacement, then put the backs on the front and the new ones on the back, and just repeat that cycle.

 

[drdiesel1]

Tires and rotations are a personal preference. It also depends on how the car is driven.
What works for one driver, might not work for another driver.

For me, it's around 7500 with pressures set @ 50 PSI. I also cross rotate the non drive tires.
This allows each tire to rotate to each corner on the car. It maximizes tire life/wear and allows
the tires to rotate in both directions too. I drive pretty hard with higher than normal cornering.
My tires have 33K miles and are very flat across the tread face. I should get close to the rating.

 

[Coastal_Cruiser]

I just did my first rotation, at 7500. Cross rotated. Had my regular tire shop guys do it. The difference in wear between the fronts and the backs was easily noticeable to the eye at a glance, but the tire guy said "nothing to see here" on a car that steers and is powered on the same axle. Glad I did it, and will stick to the 7,500 advisory.

I had the tire guys torque the bolts. But I wonder how critical that is with the stock Bolt wheels. ?

 

[madmike]

I like to buy my tires at a place that rotates tires for free and take them in as recommended. Keeps the warranty active and I have a record of the work being done in case there is an issue.

 

[drdiesel1]

I just did my first rotation, at 7500. Cross rotated. Had my regular tire shop guys do it. The difference in wear between the fronts and the backs was easily noticeable to the eye at a glance, but the tire guy said "nothing to see here" on a car that steers and is powered on the same axle. Glad I did it, and will stick to the 7,500 advisory.

I had the tire guys torque the bolts. But I wonder how critical that is with the stock Bolt wheels. ?

Proper torque on the lug nuts is critical. It reduces the possibility of rotor damage that
will cause rotor run out issues. Tire shops are known for using air impacts to reinstall
the wheels. They run em down tight without a care. This will cause over and uneven torque.

Your rotors will start to warp and cause brake pulsation. New air guns can crank a lug nut
down to 500 lb/ft. Usually the stud breaks, but either way it's not good.
The good shops will use a hand torque wrench for final tightening. Some use torque sticks
on the air guns. Those that don't use anything should be avoided.

 

[GJETSON]

I rotated my tires, for the third time, Friday afternoon. Never had a car with TPMS before. Upon starting the re-calibration process this time, after the horn honked for the front left tire....no more honks. Now I have the "low tire pressure" symbol, and "Tire Monitor System" message on the DIC. According to the manual, something has failed. I will have to call my local dealer Monday am. Hopefully they a have a way of rebooting either the unit in the tire, or the computer. This is just one more example of convenient, but totally unnecessary crap with which modern cars are loaded. The worst part is that, even though the dismiss check mark appears on the DIC, I can not clear the message, so can't see any of the normal screens on the DIC until this gets resolved. :-(