by newcorolla, October 8, 2004
Hi,
I have a 2004 Corolla CE and was wondering when is the right time to rotate the tires.
My dealer, when I bought it, said to do it every 10,000 km (6,250 miles), whereas today at my first oil change the technician said every 16,000 km (10,000 miles). So... who is more right??
I've seen it recommended at intervals as short as 5000 miles or long as 15000 miles. Some tire manufacturers recommend against tire rotation - some recommend their own schedule.
Who is more right? Probably depends on how you drive the car and what kind of tires are on it right now. When in doubt - go for the shorter schedule - won't hurt anything, just takes up more of your time.
Dai_Shan
If your doing it yourself, 5-8k would be good(if you don't mind doing the work) more rotating helps tire life(wears even and gradual) but if your paying for it, 10-15k is just fine if not more, if tire wear isn't evident. (front tires cupping)
Dai Shan, are you talking in terms of kilometres or miles?
Dai_Shan
miles
one thing that must be taken into account.... is tire cost and tire rotation cost (whether time, or money). If you are driving budget tires from a place like discount tire or something like that. Rotating the tires isn't going to be that important (cost of tire is so minimal compared to cost of roatating)
now if your driving $50+ dollar tires....you wanna get your moneys worth. Rotating will help you get that.
I rotate my Nokian tires every 8,000 kms. Luckily there is no cost to getting them rotated and I need to get it doen if I want the treadwear warranty........which looks like I will be using. Treawear rating is 420.......but they are wearing quicker than I thought they would.
I have my own hackneyed theory--I' may get well over 100,000 miles out of my tires (I got 106k miles on my previous car, an F150, before selling it--it had the stock tires on it and they didn't need replacing).
Granted, there's lots of highway miles involved when you're talking about 100k miles on one set of tires.
I have 41k miles on my 04 Corolla now, and have rotated them twice--the first at about 8 thousand and the second time--well, I don't remember-well after that. I should have only rotated once.
What's wrong with this theory: you want to rotate your tires at exactly the half-life of the entire set. Determining that point is the tricky part.
Someone already mentioned it, but rotating every 5k miles or so can quickly add up to a new set of tires.
These cars aren't like my previous Volkswagens. They don't chew up tires. I rotate mine at 20,000km. I now have 160,000km on my 03 Corolla S with no problems other than the original CRAP Goodyears which I replaced with Michelins at about 50,000km.
