I rotated my tires today while doing my oil change. I checked the repair manual and noticed an exception for Mexico. Seems I rotated my tires the "Mexican way" given that the Ecopias on the LE's 17" wheels are bi-directional. Not sure why this was put here. Do the 19" wheels on the XLE come with directional tires that are not offered in Mexico? -
I thought a mexican tyre rotation was driving the vehicle either forward or reverse Steel belted radials develop a directional bias, if they are rotated in the opposite direction as a drive tyre, and sometimes even as a steer tyre, the steel belting will try to move again to match the new rotation direction, and tear the bond between the layers and fail ..... sometimes just the tread comes off, other times the case fails and the tyre "blows out" Both generally happen when the tyre carcass is hot and the forces are high ..... i.e. at speed down the highway ..... I'm guessing Mexican's must still use rag tyres (Textile Radials) or maybe even conventional rag tyres ..... T1 Terry
Our 2010 North American Prius Owners Manual says to keep them on the same sides, whereas with our slew of Hondas it was invariably “straight back and cross to front”, barring direction tires. Not sure why.
Ford and GM manuals also called for a side cross with the rotation. Since I didn't have directional tires, that's how I did the Toyotas too. The Mexican difference might come down to rougher roads.
The only thing I can think of is that the Michelin X-Ice Snow(the only winter tire sold in the US for the gen5) is a directional tire. So there's a possibility for a car in the US to need the front-to-back rotation, while there's virtually zero chance a car in Mexico would need it. It's a very weak argument, but it's all I got.
On quite a few car forums I frequent, there are regular complains about tyre failure, steering problems and rough ride, bumping issues developing after a scheduled service where a tyre rotation was part of the schedule. Maybe the heat of the roads are a lot higher over here in Australia, but not long after steel belted radials started to become popular, a bulletin to all vehicle repairers (which I was one at the time) to mark the direction of tyre rotation before removing wheels, to ensure the rotation was not reversed. If, for any reason, the tyre needed to be swapped from side to side, the tyre had to be reverse on the rim first, to ensure the rotation direction remained the same. The idea of putting the most worn tyre as the spare was abandoned for the practice of keeping the spare tyre new, so a rotation direction was not established, and once used, it remained as a tyre on the road and a tyre replaced for a new tyre and placed in the spare tyre position. Not long after, the skinny emergency use only spare wheel was introduced, so the messing around with spare tyres being replaced due to age rather than tread wear became a thing of the past. T1 Terry
This belt separating was an issue back when radials were still new. It isn't one today, and tire manufacturers recommend a cross pattern. Tire rotation: extend the life of your tires | Michelin USA Maybe there are use cases where this shouldn't be done, but like 3000k mile oil changes, not needed by most. With three model manuals calling for front to front, I figured Toyota was just stuck with old thinking.
One advantage to keeping wheels to one side: only two of the wheels tend to get curb rash. My guess is the policy gets rubber-stamped from one generation Owner's Manual to the next, never reviewed.
This is easy to explain. Toyota's policy does not have the advantage of a recurring four-year procedure for electing the company's management.
That was once true, but hasn't been so for decades. Radial non-directional tires can be safely swapped to the other side of the car. I haven't been here long enough to post links, but all major tire manufacturers expressly permit the cross-car rotation of non-directional radial tires.
I'll rotate my tires when the wear on the fronts is 1/16th greater than the rears. On the wife's last tires it was once before they were replaced at 65k miles on the original tires and they would still pass inspection when they were replaced. Her daughters made her, she didn't listen to me .
