Can tyres be swapped front to back without problems ?

[allycat]

Hi

I have an XC90 D5 10 months old which is just coming up on 10k miles. The front tyres are now quite worn down but still have some way to go until getting to the wear bands. The rear tyres have much more tread on them, so I am wondering if it is safe to swap the front and rear tyres so that the ones with more tread are on the front and vice versa. I would not want to swap them front to rear AND left to right as I do not think that would be sensible.

This way I might get up to almost 20k miles before having to replace them all in one go assuming the same sort of wear pattern / history that has happened so far.

Does anyone have experience of having done this, and are tyre dealerships or volvo dealerships (1st service due soon) happy to do this for a small fee ?

Thanks

[Peter Milnes]

Front to back on each side is normally the way to do it. The wear is biased to the front because for most of the time the car is 95% front wheel drive and 5% rear wheel drive. This obviously changes depending on how and where the car is driven.

It is an easy task if you have a spare or temp spare wheel. In other words jack up and take say left front off stick spare/temp spare on the front jack up and remove left rear wheel and fit front wheel in it's place. Then jack up the front and fit the rear wheel to the front. Then carry out the same manouevre on the right side.

All the best, Peter.

[T240]

To be perfectly frank, and I don't mean to undermine Peter here in any way, the line of thought for the past 15 years or so, from both the tyre manufacturers, and the TRRL (Transport & Road Research Laboratory)in this country, is that you should under NO circumstances rotate the use of your tyres, be it front to back or side to side.

It is a potentially dangerous practice due to the fact that tyres wear differently - front to back, and side to side. Once swapped to a different position the tyre will not perform properly, and despite popular belief will not "bed in".

So, basically, the answer is a resounding NO!

Hope that helps.

[KeatV70D5SE]

If you keep swapping tyres around to maximise wear then you are just increasing the chances of having to replace all 4 at once - not a nice thought.

If you do want to then don't bother faffing around with the spare. Trolley jacks are available for about £20 or less now so buying 2 isn't a massive expenditure. By the time you put a price on your own time jacking the car up and down twice for each wheel it'll seem worth it.

[allycat]

Thanks for all the comments. I decided to go ahead and swap them front to back. Rather than faff about with the spare I phoned quickfit and asked them how much they would charge. They quoted me £20 to rotate them and to balance them as well. I took it down this morning and they did it in about 15 minutes.

They took the rears off and put them on the balancing machine before putting them on the front axle. They did not put the fronts on the machine before putting them on the back axle.

Then the mechanic said I could take the car out. I did so assuming they wanted the space, and then went back in to pay. He looked very surprised when I reappeared. I asked how much I needed to pay and he said nothing - it was free since they did not need to rebalance the wheels as the machine showed they were already balanced !

Now I would assume the cost of £20 was to cover the labour and the check on the balancing machine and any weights they needed to add, but they seemed to think that since they did not need to add or change any weights then it was free.

Can't say fffffff, ffffff, fairer than that can you ?

Thanks for the advice.

[imac]

Kwik fit do something for free?

Must have been in a good mood!!

They wanted £25 per corner to fit tyres purchased online. Thats £100 to fit a full set of tyres. Crikey. I can get them done for a fiver a corner at most backstreet type garages.

In my experience the Kwik-fit spanner monkeys don't know an awful lot about the cars they work with. They have twice damaged my parents previous cars (both Volvo's).

There are some exceptions to that rule though, the geezer at my local Kwik Fit was the ex-manager of a local garage and knows his Volvo's very well.

[cootuk]

You'll probably find that they chipped an alloy putting them on the machine, and have air-tooled them up so tight that you'll need a 5ft bar to loosen them!

[imac]

>You'll probably find that they chipped an alloy putting them
>on the machine, and have air-tooled them up so tight that
>you'll need a 5ft bar to loosen them!

Hole in one.

I torque my nuts up (oo-er) to 110NM, as per Volvo spec. After coming back from said chain of garages I was out there huffing and puffing till I almost blew my house down before I could undo the nuts. Goodness knows what NM they were at.

Wow, this is an interesting thread - it's amazing how accepted practices change from one part of the world to another. For those of us who live some or all the way across the Atlantic, tire rotation is an accepted and recommended practice. In fact the manual for my 04 XC90 T6 reads:

"Tire Rotation
Volvo recommends rotating the tires every 7,500 miles (12,000 km). Tires should be rotated front-to-back/back-to-front only. Tires must maintain the same direction of rotation throughout their lifetime, and should never be rotated from one side of the vehicle to the other."

Most believe that this is recommended in order to ensure consistent tire wear and, hence, diameter for all four tires thereby preventing anomalies in the operation of the AWD drive system.

FWIW ...

Cheers,

Andre

>>You'll probably find that they chipped an alloy putting
>them
>>on the machine, and have air-tooled them up so tight that
>>you'll need a 5ft bar to loosen them!
>
>Hole in one.
>
>I torque my nuts up (oo-er) to 110NM, as per Volvo spec. After
>coming back from said chain of garages I was out there huffing
>and puffing till I almost blew my house down before I could
>undo the nuts. Goodness knows what NM they were at.
>
>
>
I know what you mean about lug nuts - I have had similar experiences with garages and their impact wrenches. This was a big issue with my old 740, since overtightening the nuts would distort the hub/rotors permanently. I now tell the garage to hand torque the wheel nuts/bolts ... whether they do or not is another story.

Cheers,

Andre