Make your tires last longer with regular tire rotation and wheel balancing.
Normal wear and tear (especially turning corners), causes your front tires to wear more on the shoulders. Front-wheel drive vehicles have even more force on the front tires than other types of vehicles.
Rotating Your Tires
Rotating your tires regularly is important to ensure that all four tires wear as evenly as possible, which helps the tires last longer.
Tires are typically rotated from front to back, although some manufacturer’s recommend a cross rotational pattern. Additionally, some high performance vehicles have different sized tires on the front and back, which means that they can only be rotated from left to right. Your Precision Auto Repair service technician will know the right type of rotation required by your vehicle.
Tire manufacturers have a recommendation for how often tires should be rotated. It is typically every 5,000 to 8,000 miles.
Wheel Balancing
Balancing your tires adds weights to the wheel to balance it out. Variations in the tire, wheel manufacture, valve stem and tire pressure monitoring sensors can all contribute to an imbalance. Small variations can cause vibrations when driving: the wheel may actually bounce a bit while you drive down the road.
If a front wheel is out of balance, you will feel the vibration through the steering wheel. When it is a rear tire, you will feel the vibration in the seat of your car.
Your tires should be rebalanced any time you get a new tire or remount an existing tire when it has been removed for any type of service, like a flat tire.
Learn more about the importance of maintaining your tires with Rob.