Tire rotation?

[Gävlebocken]

I bought my 2015 XC70 T6 a little over a year ago.

The owner's manual states no tire rotation is necessary. It also states if it is done it should only be front to back. This is rather confusing. If it's not needed, why do it?

The dealership service department does recommend tire rotation and, in fact, they did so when I recently took the car to them for the 40k mile maintenance.

I have to say I have been impressed with these guys. There have been at least two occasions when they could have charged me for unnecessary work or work that was not performed and I would have been none the wiser. But they did not. So I don't think they are trying to run up the bill. Especially not for a $29 procedure.

Anyway, what does anyone here think? Rotate or not rotate?

[jadnhm]

I personally rotate my own tires, and I have heard a number of opinions on exactly /how/ to do it.

I actually prefer the old-stool `front to back, back-crossed-to-front' method with non-directional tires, but I have heard that the 'new' way to do it is to keep the tire on the same side of the car to keep the direction of rotation the same. Obviously if you have directional tires that limits you right away also. Also I have an old car (2008, 315k kms) so springs sag and bushings flex and things are not as tight as they once were.... the tires are bound to wear unevenly from side to side and front to back.

Definitely the most important thing is to get the front tires onto the back though as they will wear our super fast if they stay on the front their entire life if your car usually only has 1 passenger and little cargo.

[pbierre]

Whether the car is FWD or AWD, the front tires wear faster than the rears. That's because the fronts do all the steering, 60% of the braking, and 90-100% of the acceleration. Therefore, to get longer life out of a set of tires, you want to exchange fronts with backs, keeping wheels on the same side they were on.

This Haldex AWD design assumes that the front and rear tires have the same circumference. That's why adding chains is not recommended.