What Is Tire Rotation?

Tire rotation is an important part of maintaining your Toyota. What is a tire rotation? It’s a simple yet critical part of car maintenance that helps to ensure that your tires experience even tread wear. This handy guide on what tire rotation from the certified technicians in our Service Center will fill you in on what it means to rotate tires and how regular tire rotation can benefit you. If you find that your car, truck, or SUV is due for its next tire rotation, schedule service at Mossy Toyota!

What Does It Mean to Rotate Tires?

Tire rotation is a rather simple to understand the process: you just move the tires from one position on a vehicle to a different position. Usually, you’ll move the front tires to the rear and the rear tires to the front. You might also change sides when changing your tires, meaning your old front left tire might become your new right rear tire. Since most cars are weight-biased to the front, your front tires will typically wear out faster. However, this also depends on the drivetrain.

How Your Drivetrain Affects the Way Your Tires Wear

Why rotate tires differently on different drivetrains? Your new or pre-owned vehicle’s drivetrain will directly impact which tires undergo the most wear and tear on the roads in and around La Jolla. Take a look at how different drivetrains affect your tires:

• Front-wheel drive vehicle: With an FWD vehicle, the two front wheels receive direct power from the engine, which causes the front tires to wear down faster than the rear tires.
• Rear-wheel drive vehicle: With RWD vehicles, the engine delivers power to your rear wheels, so the rear tires wear down faster.
• All-wheel drive vehicle: With AWD vehicles, the engine sends power to all four wheels evenly, but more often than not, the rear wheels still wear faster than your front wheels.

How Often Should You Rotate Your Tires?

As for how often to rotate your tires, we recommend that you bring your Toyota vehicle in for a tire rotation every 5,000 to 8,000 miles. That being said, you should consult your owner’s manual to find out what is recommended for your specific model. It’s a good idea to plan on having the tires rotated every time you bring your car, truck, or SUV in for an oil change or brake repair.

What Does Tire Rotation Do?

• When your tires are rotated, you’ll get better traction because when your tires wear down, they lose tire tread depth. By rotating your tires regularly, you’ll make sure your tires wear down evenly on all sides.
• If you want to prevent blowouts, you’ll want to rotate your tires regularly to ensure that a dangerous level of wear doesn’t come to the point of being a hazard.
• To improve performance, rotate your tires regularly, as tires that have uneven wear will produce a vibration that will eventually lead to bigger problems such as a shaking steering column.
• Since worn tires create drag, strain the engine, and increase the amount of fuel you consume, rotating your tires on a regular basis will maximize efficiency on Carlsbad roads and beyond.

The experts at Mossy Toyota are here to help you with any sort of service need that may face your car, from small jobs like tire rotations to bigger jobs like transmission work.

Mossy Toyota: Your Go-to Service Center

Now that we’ve answered “what is a tire rotation?” it’s time for us to tell you about what makes the Mossy Toyota service technicians so great. For one, they’re certified by Toyota to be the best possible people for the job. In addition, they’re part of the Mossy Toyota team, a group of sales and service professionals unmatched in the local community. Contact us if you’d like to learn more.