digitalrurouni
Passed Driver's Ed
- Location
- East Coast
If you want your tires to last long then rotating and keeping an air on tire pressures is a must. Simple as that. Especially on cars where all the tire sizes are the same.
Couldn't agree more. And by doing it yourself you discover all kinds of things. Found this little retainer screw loose today. Not sure if a tech would've seen it or cared enough.Um, no, rotations are definitely a good thing, except if the front and rear wheels are different sizes AND the tires are unidirectional.
Clearly this isn't the case on the GTI, so they are just being lazy. You should absolutely rotate. If the dealer won't do it, just do it at home. If you don't have a hydraulic jack, use the little one in the trunk... It's about a 15 minute job and gives you much better tire life and performance overall.
BMW dealership says the same for my xDrive 5 series. But thought that was just a BMW AWD thing.
I think you're giving too much credit to the "ultimate driving machine" and their weight balance. Directional tires and staggered wheels and tires mean you physically can't rotate tires. Doesn't matter if rwd or awd. Has nothing to do with weight, or power distribution. That's true with most BMWs, Mercedes, Lexus sedans, some SUVs, etc.All BMWs, RWD or AWD. Because of the weight balance, rotating the tires won't extend their life at all, and because each tire wears in a bit differently, rotating tires on a BMW usually creates more problems than it solves. If you've got a lead foot, you may go through rear tires faster, but not at such a rate that rotating would have made a difference.
As for the rest of the AWD world, I would still rotate at 7500 miles. Most cars carry more weight on the front tires than the rear (in the neighborhood of 60/40), and since most AWD systems send the bulk of their torque to only one axle until the other starts to slip, the front tires on most AWD cars will still wear faster than the rears. BMW xDrive is biased to RWD in most conditions, but again, the weight balance makes all the tires wear pretty evenly.
I think you're giving too much credit to the "ultimate driving machine" and their weight balance. Directional tires and staggered wheels and tires mean you physically can't rotate tires. Doesn't matter if rwd or awd. Has nothing to do with weight, or power distribution. That's true with most BMWs, Mercedes, Lexus sedans, some SUVs, etc.
To under-complicate this topic: if you can rotate your tires, even just front to back, you should. Every oil change, every other, when you feel like it. It will help. Done.
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