[BCBrian]

I really like the way my DuraTracs handle on pavement and off road. Now that they have about 27000 miles, they are starting to get a little bit noisy. The tire shop mgr where I purchased them and get my free balancing and rotations done has suggested reversing the direction at the next rotation. If this will extend their life, I am all for it.

I remember hearing stories about cross rotation causing ply de-lamination but that may have been with bias ply tires.... yeah I am kinda old school.

Has anyone ever done this with success? I'd like to hear from our resident expert from Discount Tire.

 

[raine]

For RWD/4WD it's generally rear tires go straight forward (Left-Rear to Left-Front, Right-Rear to Right-Front), and front tires go backwards diagonal (Left-Front to Right-Rear and Right-Front to Left-Rear) with no tire flipping*.

*if you have tires with different graphics on inner and outer walls, this might not work, you'll have to flip tires for appearance continuity at the expense of tire wear.

 

[shift_RUSH]

For RWD/4WD it's generally rear tires go straight forward (Left-Rear to Left-Front, Right-Rear to Right-Front), and front tires go backwards diagonal (Left-Front to Right-Rear and Right-Front to Left-Rear) with no tire flipping*.

*if you have tires with different graphics on inner and outer walls, this might not work, you'll have to flip tires for appearance continuity at the expense of tire wear.

raine, are saying the fronts (going to cross rears) need to be dismounted & flipped in order to avoid being driven in opposite direction?
The *-statement seems to contradict what I 'thought' you were trying to say in first sentence.

 

[raine]

raine, are saying the fronts (going to cross rears) need to be dismounted & flipped in order to avoid being driven in opposite direction?
The *-statement seems to contradict what I 'thought' you were trying to say in first sentence.

I think I worded that wrong in my first reply. I re-read it and it's not as clear and slightly confusing, so I'll try again (for the both of us LOL)

Okay Lets "label" each tire for reference. I'm going to use my truck (4wd/Rwd) with KO2's. All 4 tires are the same size, all non-directional, and have different sidewall graphics on each side (white letters on one side, black letters on the other) which will actually help my explanation. My truck currently has the white letters towards the inside of the tires.

So start with the rears, it's easy and straight-forward, no tire removal required:

1. Left-Rear, white letters are inside ---> move to Left-Front, white letters still inside.
2. Right-Rear, white letters are inside ---> move to Right-Front, white letters still inside.

Now to the fronts - here's where it got confusing at first, hopefully this is clearer. Ideally, I would do the following:

3. Left-Front, white letters on the inside --->move diagonal to Right-Rear, white letters will now be on the outside.
4. Right-Front, white letters on the inside --->move diagonal to Left-Rear, white letters will now be on the outside.

Yes - steps 3 and 4 require removing the tire from the wheel and turning them 180-degrees before remounting. This lets the truck use the other half of the tire tread (think: front camber) for even wear across all 4 tires in the rotation, and thus longer tire life.

Now the problem with doing the above is that now I have white letters showing in the rear and none up front. Functionally it doesn't make any difference, but appearance wise you get the picture. So another option is to change steps 3 and 4 to:

3b. Left-Front, white letters are inside ---> move to Right-Rear as-is, white letters stay inside.
4b. Right-Front, white letters are inside ---> move to Left-Rear as-is, white letters stay inside.

So I keep the black letters on the outside, things look fine. The problem though here is that if I only rotate with this method, I will wear out the half of the tread (the half closer to the black letter side) on all 4 tires faster than the other half of the tread (again, think: front camber).

Of course, my rotation suggestion only applies for this thread. When it comes to any other vehicle with directional tires, staggered tire sizing, or both - then it's a totally different ballgame.

I'm actually planning on getting my KO2s remounted with the white letters on the outside for awhile to even out the tire wear, I think it's about time.

I hope that makes sense without a drawing ::smile::

 

[Nissan4Life]

Wtf. You never unmount tires in a rotation. Standard rwd,4wd rotation will get the tires run in reverse. The duo tracs are bi directional. Rear tires straight forward. Same direction of rotation. Front tires to the rear, r to l switch. This reverses the rotational direction. After 2 rotations all tires have been driven, rwd, in both directions.

 

[bgee]

I keep it simple ... I rotate tires every 6000 miles in a circle. After four rotations every tire has been at every position.

RR goes to LR
LR goes to LF
LF goes to RF
RF goes to RR

The spare is not part of the rotation because it has a different wheel.

I have done this on the last four pickups I have owned, going back to 1989 and covering something over 450,000 miles. In that time I have had one blowout which was traced to road debris. I have never seen tread separation or uneven wear.

The K02 tires I had on my S-10 ZR2 were a mixed bag. The factory original set lasted 65k miles. The second set went a bit over 80k. The third set had two tires go out-of-round and require warranty replacement. They had 40k when I sold the truck.

Bill Gee

 

[Tarpman]

Wtf. You never unmount tires in a rotation. Standard rwd,4wd rotation will get the tires run in reverse. The duo tracs are bi directional. Rear tires straight forward. Same direction of rotation. Front tires to the rear, r to l switch. This reverses the rotational direction. After 2 rotations all tires have been driven, rwd, in both directions.

This is how your supposed to rotate. I was always told to rotate this way, especially on a truck, especially with off-road tires. I've always rotated mine every five to six thousand miles depending on the type of tread. What sucks for me is I put so many miles on my vehicles that it seems like I'm always rotating them I've had mine for five months and I've already got 17,000 miles on it

 

[The other Sean]

Wtf. You never unmount tires in a rotation. Standard rwd,4wd rotation will get the tires run in reverse. The duo tracs are bi directional. Rear tires straight forward. Same direction of rotation. Front tires to the rear, r to l switch. This reverses the rotational direction. After 2 rotations all tires have been driven, rwd, in both directions.

This.

Brian, have you been rotating every oil change? I have found that to be best with the Duratracs. With that said, in 54k miles I've only rotated my Duratracs front to back and they are not too loud.

 

[BCBrian]

This.

Brian, have you been rotating every oil change? I have found that to be best with the Duratracs. With that said, in 54k miles I've only rotated my Duratracs front to back and they are not too loud.

I have been rotating them every 5000 miles.... although I went about 1300 over once due to my Moab trip last year. They are wearing pretty well but now that I am at 1/2 tread depth, there is some noise on the highway.

All my previous rotations have been front to back only and I was a little surprised by the mgr's suggestion. I plan on continuing to drive on them but will probably go for something different when they wear out. I am going to 3 ply sidewalls on my next set as 1 of my friends has had sidewall cuts that have ruined his DuraTracs. Since I am still running the R180 and it's harder to chg axles and don't plan on doing a Titan swap, weight is a consideration for my situation. Most 3 ply sidewall tires are several pounds heavier than the relatively light 56 lb DTs.

 

[phatB]

This is how your supposed to rotate. I was always told to rotate this way, especially on a truck, especially with off-road tires. I've always rotated mine every five to six thousand miles depending on the type of tread. What sucks for me is I put so many miles on my vehicles that it seems like I'm always rotating them I've had mine for five months and I've already got 17,000 miles on it

I always thought the same, that the rears swap R to L when put up to the front but I just looked at the Owners Manual and it says just to move back to front, not swapping R to L! surprising. I was also surprised to see that they're supposed to be rotated at only 5k miles. this is the first heavy truck i've owned so I guess it makes sense. I've never rotated tires before in any car i've owned until like 20k!

 

[mtyler11]

I have been rotating them every 5000 miles.... although I went about 1300 over once due to my Moab trip last year. They are wearing pretty well but now that I am at 1/2 tread depth, there is some noise on the highway.

All my previous rotations have been front to back only and I was a little surprised by the mgr's suggestion. I plan on continuing to drive on them but will probably go for something different when they wear out. I am going to 3 ply sidewalls on my next set as 1 of my friends has had sidewall cuts that have ruined his DuraTracs. Since I am still running the R180 and it's harder to chg axles and don't plan on doing a Titan swap, weight is a consideration for my situation. Most 3 ply sidewall tires are several pounds heavier than the relatively light 56 lb DTs.

I'm impressed you haven't had abnormal wear by just shuttling tires F-R. I've consistently done a "standard-cross" rotation like raine described with nice even wear, about 25k. fronts have a little camber wear but a turn on the rear levels everything out. I keep up with my tread depth monthly. I'm @ 13/32 across all 4. They may be producing a little more noise, but still not MT noise levels. Friends (jeeps) that have Duratracs have similar observations but for the $$ and mileage, they're doing pretty well.

To your original question, there's no reason to be concerned in running the tires in "reverse" direction. ONLY tires that have directional tread should be kept on same side of vehicle, and thats only for traction/water evacuation when the tread is specifically designed to run in 1 direction. But it has nothing to do with carcass construction, just with tread design.

 

[raine]

...so what you're saying is, what I explained makes sense. Good LOL

 

[shift_RUSH]

Do they still even make bias ply tires? If not, when was the last decade they did??

 

[Nissan4Life]

...so what you're saying is, what I explained makes sense. Good LOL

The WTF was the fact that your white letters (which were once on the inside) is now on the outside. This could only happen if you pull the tires off the wheel and flip them around. Or if you have Lego wheels.

Do they still even make bias ply tires? If not, when was the last decade they did??

They do. Classic car looking tires, like white walls. Trailer tires, some semi. Tractor tires, and big *** offroad tires like in the 40's.

 

[The other Sean]

I have been rotating them every 5000 miles.... although I went about 1300 over once due to my Moab trip last year. They are wearing pretty well but now that I am at 1/2 tread depth, there is some noise on the highway.

All my previous rotations have been front to back only and I was a little surprised by the mgr's suggestion. I plan on continuing to drive on them but will probably go for something different when they wear out. I am going to 3 ply sidewalls on my next set as 1 of my friends has had sidewall cuts that have ruined his DuraTracs. Since I am still running the R180 and it's harder to chg axles and don't plan on doing a Titan swap, weight is a consideration for my situation. Most 3 ply sidewall tires are several pounds heavier than the relatively light 56 lb DTs.

My theory on the loudness is the fact that the siping on the tread blocks only goes about half as deep as the rest of the tread. I've got areas where the siping is no longer which makes it more of a mud tread than an all terrain. I've actually considered replacing the tires soon and Craigslisting my current ones as they still have plenty of tread. But, they are still kicking butt in the snow, so, I'll probably just live with the noise.

 

[BCBrian]

I had my tires cross rotated today and they are slightly quieter rotating the other direction. Upon closer inspection, they were very slightly cupped and the shop mgr insists that turning them the other direction will correct this. As a plus, they also pulled the hammer on balancing weights and replaced them with tape weights to avoid having them come off in aired down situations.

 

[invasion08]

I have always rotated fd to rd, fp to rp, rd to fp, rp to fd.

F=front
R=rear
D=driver
P=passenger

I also rotate my tires every other oil change or 6k miles.