5-tire rotation

[spelingbeachampeun]

I plan on rotating my spare tire in when I do tire rotations on my Trailhunter, every 5k miles. When looking through the owners manual, however, it indicates to perform a 5-tire rotation, but keep the spare continuously on the passenger side of the vehicle, not cross-rotating any of the tires at all. Constantly rotating a third tire on the passenger side of the vehicle would cause the passenger tires to wear slower than the driver side, with its tires staying on the vehicle the entire time. After driving 50k miles the passenger side tires and spare would all only have 30-35k miles, but drivers would be at 50k.

Owners manual:

Maybe I'm overthinking it but Is there any reason not to rotate the tires like the picture below? This would wear all of the tires more evenly and I'm not sure of any issues it would cause. Why would Toyota not recommend, or recommend against, cross-rotating?

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[Burgi]

I don’t think it really matters much but the front to back rotation has to do with rotational vs non rotational tires. In theory if you have rotational tires and cross rotate from one side to the other it would force them to rotate in the wrong direction.

 

[spelingbeachampeun]

I don’t think it really matters much but the front to back rotation has to do with rotational vs non rotational tires. In theory if you have rotational tires and cross rotate from one side to the other it would force them to rotate in the wrong direction.

Correct, but the factory tires are not directional. I just don’t know why Toyota recommends the way they do, when it will wear one side significantly more than the other.

 

[AAMC]

I plan on rotating my spare tire in when I do tire rotations on my Trailhunter, every 5k miles. When looking through the owners manual, however, it indicates to perform a 5-tire rotation, but keep the spare continuously on the passenger side of the vehicle, not cross-rotating any of the tires at all. Constantly rotating a third tire on the passenger side of the vehicle would cause the passenger tires to wear slower than the driver side, with its tires staying on the vehicle the entire time. After driving 50k miles the passenger side tires and spare would all only have 30-35k miles, but drivers would be at 50k.

Owners manual:

Maybe I'm overthinking it but Is there any reason not to rotate the tires like the picture below? This would wear all of the tires more evenly and I'm not sure of any issues it would cause. Why would Toyota not recommend, or recommend against, cross-rotating?

I used to rotate the BFG KM3's on my on old Rubicon like the 2nd pic. i got 75k miles out of them over 5 years and still had more tread available when I traded it in on the new 4Runner. I thought the wear pattern over time was really uniform.

 

[Shmody]

Correct, but the factory tires are not directional. I just don’t know why Toyota recommends the way they do, when it will wear one side significantly more than the other.

I find it odd that is their recommendation as well. I worked in auto service industry for nine years and we performed five wheel rotations on plenty of vehicles, never keeping three tires on one side all the time.

My theory on rotations is to always do it the same every time. I would follow the second picture you added and ensure you always complete in the same pattern. We would often see customers who would only rotate front to back then request we do a cross pattern due to poor alignment and shoulder wear and they would have issues with vibrations and more often than not they were out of balance due to radial runout that could not be corrected.

 

[CMill4Runner]

I find it odd that is their recommendation as well. I worked in auto service industry for nine years and we performed five wheel rotations on plenty of vehicles, never keeping three tires on one side all the time.

My theory on rotations is to always do it the same every time. I would follow the second picture you added and ensure you always complete in the same pattern. We would often see customers who would only rotate front to back then request we do a cross pattern due to poor alignment and shoulder wear and they would have issues with vibrations and more often than not they were out of balance due to radial runout that could not be corrected.

Exactly, I do 5 tire rotations on anything I have that has a real spare and non-directional tires. I have always just brought the spare to the front driver, then F Driver to R Driver, R Driver to F Passenger, F Passenger to R passenger, R Passenger to spare. Keeping it consistent so I can't mess it up!

 

[AdFour]

I was also looking at the manual a few weeks back and didn't understand the Toyota rotation pattern. The 2nd/lower rotation image makes more sense to me. Are we missing something here??

 

[jdgreen]

I just did the first rotation this week. Since the Toyota recommended pattern didn't make sense to me I decided to leave the spare in new condition and do non-diagonal rotation. When 4 tires need replacement I'll buy 3 and put the unused spare on the ground.

 

[6thGen1419]

You're always going to have at least one wheel in service that's less wear than the others.

 

[shine]

I just did the first rotation this week. Since the Toyota recommended pattern didn't make sense to me I decided to leave the spare in new condition and do non-diagonal rotation. When 4 tires need replacement I'll buy 3 and put the unused spare on the ground.

Depending on how quickly you wear out the tires this can leave you with one tire that goes beyond its expected lifespan. Also, no guarantees that you will find three tires that match the oem spare.

 

[Gerardo]

I plan on rotating my spare tire in when I do tire rotations on my Trailhunter, every 5k miles. When looking through the owners manual, however, it indicates to perform a 5-tire rotation, but keep the spare continuously on the passenger side of the vehicle, not cross-rotating any of the tires at all. Constantly rotating a third tire on the passenger side of the vehicle would cause the passenger tires to wear slower than the driver side, with its tires staying on the vehicle the entire time. After driving 50k miles the passenger side tires and spare would all only have 30-35k miles, but drivers would be at 50k.

Owners manual:

Maybe I'm overthinking it but Is there any reason not to rotate the tires like the picture below? This would wear all of the tires more evenly and I'm not sure of any issues it would cause. Why would Toyota not recommend, or recommend against, cross-rotating?

Glad I’m not the only person questioning Toyota’s 5-tire rotation pattern from the owner’s manual. The second picture makes more logical sense to me for non-directional tires!

For folks doing your own tire rotations, are you using the emergency jack and rotating one tire at a time or how are you going about it? Thanks!

 

[MikeD]

For folks doing your own tire rotations, are you using the emergency jack and rotating one tire at a time or how are you going about it? Thanks!

Decided to get a floor jack (Duralast 3 ton) and impact wrench soon after I got the 6G4R. Always put jack stands under frame for safety but for quick tire swap just do two front than two rear with floor jack holding the load. I've gotten lots of use since I swap my big (285/75R18) offroad tires on for winter and offroad weekends but move back to OEM tires for daily driving and long highway trips where I'm not offroading. I've got the process down to just a bit over half hour for 4 tire swap (not nascar but I'm feeling relatively competent).
Wanted to note that when I brought it in for first "free" service at the BIG dealer where I bought it, the service manager said: "we never rotate in the spare". I pointed out what the manual says and he just repeated that. Well. OK.

 

[Gerardo]

Decided to get a floor jack (Duralast 3 ton) and impact wrench soon after I got the 6G4R. Always put jack stands under frame for safety but for quick tire swap just do two front than two rear with floor jack holding the load. I've gotten lots of use since I swap my big (285/75R18) offroad tires on for winter and offroad weekends but move back to OEM tires for daily driving and long highway trips where I'm not offroading. I've got the process down to just a bit over half hour for 4 tire swap (not nascar but I'm feeling relatively competent).
Wanted to note that when I brought it in for first "free" service at the BIG dealer where I bought it, the service manager said: "we never rotate in the spare". I pointed out what the manual says and he just repeated that. Well. OK.

Thanks for sharing, @MikeD. Do you also have the TRD Off-road Premium? If so, do you need to adjust anything with the sensors after rotating your own tires? Thank you!

 

[MikeD]

Thanks for sharing, @MikeD. Do you also have the TRD Off-road Premium? If so, do you need to adjust anything with the sensors after rotating your own tires? Thank you!

Do you also have the TRD Off-road Premium? Yes
do you need to adjust anything with the sensors after rotating your own tires? No. (TPMS readings need some time on road to reset - sometimes <mile. And if I swap, I just go to the other set (vehicle allows you to register two sets of Tires/TPMS) - and takes some time on the road to fully reset.

 

[Joestac]

Before my trip to NM I was just under 5000, so wanted to do a rotation. I was "lazy" and just did the swap from both back to both front. Using the rock slider to lift one side, supported with two jack stands and did one side at a time. You do need to let the computer know you rotated the tires when you are done.

Had to zoom out, sorry, kind of small. Page 541/542 of the manual.

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