Wheel rotation offers key advantages for your vehicle's tyres.
The primary benefits of rotating your vehicle's tyres include extending their life and maintaining better performance.
Improved Tyre Lifespan
One of the main reasons to rotate your tyres is to significantly improve their lifespan. Tyres wear at different rates depending on their position on the vehicle, the type of vehicle, your driving habits, and road conditions. For example, front tyres on a front-wheel-drive car typically wear faster than rear tyres due to handling steering and more braking force.
By rotating your car tyres periodically, you help distribute the wear more evenly across all four tyres. This extends the tyre's lifespan because no single tyre wears out significantly faster than the others, allowing you to replace the set closer to the same time.
Better Performance
As tyres wear down, particularly when the tread depth gets closer to the legal minimum of 1.6mm, their performance can decrease. Worn tyres have reduced grip, especially in wet conditions, affecting braking, handling, and overall safety.
By rotating your tyres and promoting even wear, you help maintain more consistent tread depth across all four tyres for longer. This process helps to maintain better performance characteristics for a greater period compared to tyres that wear unevenly. Keeping the tread depth above the critical threshold on all tyres ensures optimal contact with the road surface, contributing to safer and more predictable vehicle dynamics.
In summary, regular wheel rotation helps:
- Distribute wear evenly across all tyres.
- Extend the overall usable life of your tyre set.
- Maintain more consistent and reliable vehicle performance by keeping tread depth more uniform.
While rotation procedures vary depending on the vehicle (front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, all-wheel drive), following the recommended pattern in your owner's manual is crucial to maximize these benefits.
