tire rotation on all-wheel-drive vehicles

[manoftaste]

CoreyS i see your point on alignment and i have a question for you below for the way you did your rotation. For alignment, since i have hit a curb a couple of times while making a U (i hit the othe side of the curb after my U-turn was almost completed, which would have forced the passenger-side front wheel inward a bit and thus would not necessarily show any tracking/pulling signs, but would definitley wear out that tire sooner) so I will have them check the alignment. Today, i actually met the tech who is going to be performing the alignment. I specifically have asked him not to do anything if the alignment is within specs. Also, I have asked him that if alignment is needed, then he should apply the original factory specs and NOT the revised specs from LR (which was issued after some vehicles showed excessive inside edge tire wear) since my tires are wearing fine.

On rotation, how did you rotate your RR and LR, did you move them to the front keeping them on there orig sides or did you cross them as well (i.e., RR to LF and LR to RF) like the front tires. Also, when you cross tires like the way you did your fronts, aren't they essentially running in reverse now, and is that of any concern at all (unless you took the tires off their rims, kept the rims at their original positions, and rotated the tires alone and then mounted them on the rims.) I was thinking of having them do the cross-rotation only on the tires and not the rims. In another words, rotate the tires without having to flip them and leave the wheels/rims where they are. All this to avoid the tires going in reverse, after rotation. I thought that this may prevent the slight inside edge wear (that usually is normal with LR3s due to their camber settings, by design) as the insider edge after rotation would become the outside edge.

 

[CoreyS]

I guess I left out what I did with the rears...I simply swapped the LF and RR, and then swapped the RF and LR. All tires are now on the opposite side of the car, rotating reverse from what they were, to counteract the feathering/cupping on the inner and outer tread blocks. Since my tread was wearing evenly across all tires, I didn't bother with remounting tires on their wheels, wasn't necessary. This may differ for you, however, due to the camber setup on your LR3. If only your rears are showing uneven wear due to camber, move them to the front without remounting the tires. After a while if your new rears (previously the fronts) eventually show this uneven wear due to camber, then remount all your tires at the next rotation.

Since you have a concern about your alignment due to hitting curbs, then I think it's a good idea to have them check your alignment. Your plan with them is what I'd probably do. If you just crawled over the curbs you mentioned, rather than slamming into them, your alignment was probably unchanged. Crawling over curbs isn't any worse than some of the offroading many of us have done.