Tire Rotation: How to Rotate Your Tires

Your tires are an integral part of your car’s performance and safety. But tire maintenance is often over looked.

The good news is, as far as DIY car care goes, rotating your tires requires minimal technical know-how. All you need is the right tools — and a little bit of muscle.

So if you’re wondering: “Can you rotate tires your self?” The answer is most certainly yes.

8 steps to rotate tires

Now let’s go through the simple steps to rotate your tires:

Step 1: Check the rotation pattern of your tires

Which tire rotation pattern is best? It depends on the type of tires: directional or non-directional.  

The treads on directional tires are usually angled to push water outward, away from the car. They’re made for a specific side of the vehicle. So a driver’s side tire should not be rotated to the passenger side, and vice versa. Non-directional are the opposite. They all look the same and can be placed at any position on your car: driver’s side, passenger’s side, front or back. 

If you have directional tires:

You’ll only want to rotate the tires front and back, keeping them on the same side of the car. Youcan do this with two jack stands by raising both the front and back tires and switching them. Thendo the same to the other side.

If you have non-directional tires:

Rotate the tires using a crisscross pattern. But the pattern is different for front- vs. rear-wheel drive cars. To do this type of rotation, you’ll need three or four jack stands since you’ll be rotating tires across sides of the car.

For front-wheel drive cars:

Move the front tires to the rear. Move the left-rear to the right-front. Move the right-rear to the left-front.

For rear-wheel drive cars

Move the rear tires to the front. Move the left-front to the right-rear. Move the right-front to the left-rear.

Step 2: Prepare your vehicle

Park on level ground and engage the emergency brake to reduce the risk of the car shifting. Then place a tire block or piece of wood on the ground behind one of the tires. This will keep the wheels stable when you get ready to loosen the lug nuts. 

Step 3: Loosen the lug nuts

Remove the hubcaps if your car has them. Then use your lug wrench to loosen the nuts on each tire. The nuts can often be very tight, so you may have to apply some force. When loosening, go ina crisscross pattern, switching between top/bottom/left/right. 

IMPORTANT NOTE:

You’ll want to “break the seal” on the lug nuts and loosen them, but do not remove them completely. 

Step 4: Raise your vehicle

Check your owner’s manual for the proper jack placement. Jack up the car and place a jack stand underneath.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

For safety, do not try to do this with multiple jacks or four jack stands. Using just two jacks will require raising and lowering the car a few times, butit’s a safer approach. 

Step 5: Remove & rotate

Remove the tires as described in Step 1. You’ll need to fully unscrew the lug nuts. After you’veplaced each tire in its new position, you’ll want to hand-tighten the lug nuts.

Step 6: Lower your car

As you finish each tire, raise the jack until you can safely remove the jack stand. Fully lower the carafter you’ve rotated all tires.

Step 7: Tighten the lugs nuts

Use your lug wrench to tighten the nuts. Go in a star-shaped pattern, doing about one rotation per nut. This helps maintain balance on the tire, avoiding vibrations and potential damage to the wheeland disc brakes. Repeat the pattern until all nuts are fully tightened. If you have hub caps, reattach them.

Step 8: Check your tire pressure

Your fingers are already dirty. So it’s a great time to pull out your tire gauge to check the pressure  — and add air if needed.

You did it! Before you get cleaned up, here’s a final thought.