Tire Rotation
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Joined: Mar 2018
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Tire rotation is only done from side-to-side. It is not done front to back. Side-to-side tire rotation is useless. Nothing is gained in doing this. It's a waste of time and money.
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I have never done a tire rotation on any of my Vettes, but as mentioned, side to side on the C7 is allowed. Since you have different diameter wheels front to back, you can’t run the back wheels on the front and front wheels on the back without causing problems.
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From: Indiana
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From: Far NW 'burbs of Chicago
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^^^
I do the side-to-side rotation each Spring/Fall when we switch from summer to AS tires, and back. No extra work.
If you get a tire tread gauge and check each groove on each tire, every few thousand miles; you'll see if any unequal wear is happening.
If you run some negative camber like the GM specs suggest, you'll get more wear on the inner part of each tire; nothing to prevent that if all tires are doing the same thing. If one tire is wearing differently, you probably need an alignment from a shop that will do it precisely.
I do the side-to-side rotation each Spring/Fall when we switch from summer to AS tires, and back. No extra work.
If you get a tire tread gauge and check each groove on each tire, every few thousand miles; you'll see if any unequal wear is happening.
If you run some negative camber like the GM specs suggest, you'll get more wear on the inner part of each tire; nothing to prevent that if all tires are doing the same thing. If one tire is wearing differently, you probably need an alignment from a shop that will do it precisely.
Drifting
Joined: Dec 2019
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From: Blacksburg Va
It can't hurt to do a side to side but I think it is kind of a waste. back in the day w/ all 4 the same size we would usually rotate to even out wear patterns. W/ a solid axle rear on a daily driver non performance car the fronts usually wear first and usually because they have a slight alignment problem. Or because those cars usually weighed more in the front. W/ a performance car the rears might wear first due to lots of hard acceleration. So rotating helped all 4 tires wear out about the same. W/ a Corvette we have different F and R sizes so F to R rotate is out. L to R is still available unless you happen to have directional tires. But, unless there is something really unusual in your driving, or there is an alignment problem, your L and R should wear the same. So why rotate?
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Racer
Joined: Sep 2020
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From: San Francisco
I own 6 vehicles, including my C7. Haven't ever done a tire rotation on any of them.
3 of the vehicles, including the C7, have different front/rear wheels sizes. Haven't owned the C7 long enough for it to be an issue yet; just installed new tires on it 2 months ago. Don't drive any of the vehicles enough for it to really matter to me.
IMO, if you're vehicle is probably aligned, you won't see enough difference in tire wear to really matter. At least for normal street/hwy use.
At least that's been my experience after NEVER bothering to rotate the tires on my vehicles, including the other 3 that have the same front/rear wheel/tire sizes, even though I can get free tire rotations or just do them myself in my garage.
3 of the vehicles, including the C7, have different front/rear wheels sizes. Haven't owned the C7 long enough for it to be an issue yet; just installed new tires on it 2 months ago. Don't drive any of the vehicles enough for it to really matter to me.
IMO, if you're vehicle is probably aligned, you won't see enough difference in tire wear to really matter. At least for normal street/hwy use.
At least that's been my experience after NEVER bothering to rotate the tires on my vehicles, including the other 3 that have the same front/rear wheel/tire sizes, even though I can get free tire rotations or just do them myself in my garage.
Last edited by sgt1372; Nov 9, 2020 at 12:12 AM.
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We had to drive about 30 miles on a flat runflat. I knew the tire was already ruined (small sidewall cut) and didn't care about further damage. When we arrived at the tire shop, they had a new tire waiting and simply removed the old tire to junk it. Aside from the sidewall cut, that tire looked perfect. No bulge. But the rubber on the inside was starting to crumble, they pointed out that it would be ok to carefully drive further on the flat but repairing it and putting it back in normal service would be dangerous.