AdvanSLF

Members, Lexus Techs, and Tire Rack:

I'm hoping you all can provide me some support and answer this question. I took my '14 IS350 F Sport RWD into a Lexus Master Certified Mechanic's shop where I've done business with the guy in the past. I planned on doing the 20k service. I'm running on the stock Bridgestone Turanza ER33 tires, which are symmetrical tires (found this out after getting off my lazy butt to do some research). I asked the mechanic to rotate my tires side to side since the symmetrical tires allow that, and I didn't do it before until now with this planned 20k service.

He suggested not to rotate them, as if i do now, the car would pull one side to the other pretty badly. There is still plenty of tread left in the front and rears and both sides. They seem to have worn pretty well and evenly--i don't push hard on bends or corners. I just wondering if i should take his word for it and not rotate my tires, and wait to the next set of tires i get then rotate those every 5k? Or is 20k in the tires not too bad and i can just rotate them myself at home and not have to deal with his advice? Thanks all in advance!

A2BLexus

If you were driving a 2 wheel drive car with the same size of tires all around, it would be beneficial.

There is no need since front and back are difference sizes.

AdvanSLF

You are correct, my 3IS is staggered, but since it has symmetrical tires wouldn't it be more beneficial to get the tires to wear more evenly by rotating them side to side? Isn't that the point of symmetrical tires even on a staggered setup?

jcheng

There's really no point to rotate them side to side since the wear isn't going to be much different.

AMNss

I rotated my tires at 40k since I found out that the front tires were wearing unevenly. However after rotating them I don't see any real benefit for rotating it as the tires will needs to be replaced anyway.

jcheng

You waited a loong time to rotate them!

The only way a side-to-side rotation would make sense would be taking the tire off and flipping them. More hassle than it's worth!

gmanusmc

We've had this discussion before - go to tire rack - they've got a pretty good tutorial on rotation.

If you are talking about dismounting and remounting, I believe you only need to do that with directional tires. The ER33s are not directional, so I think you can do the side to side - I'll find out soon - our IS is coming up on 5000 miles.

AdvanSLF

this is my understanding of the ER33s as well. because they are non-directional (i.e., they are symmetrical tires) we can rotate the tires side to side without any dismount/remount.

i found out they were symmetrical tires a little late at 20k, so i'm thinking its probably too late to rotate them because if they pull i would have to spend another $80 to align them if thats even possible. i guess i'll just wait until my next set of tires then rotate those every 5k miles.

if your car is square or staggered with symmetrical or asymmetrical tires, it would be beneficial to rotate them. square setups can go front to back, side to side, and diagonally. the staggered setup can only go side to side. i don't think about it so much as weight load when the car is shifting front to back during acceleration or back to front during heavy braking. i'm thinking more of the fact that us driving in the US on the right side of the road, most of our turns are right hand turns (90 degree turns, bends, off-ramps/on-ramps, etc.) so a lot of the load is shifting to the left side. rarely do i turn left and even so, its never under as much load as going right on off/on-ramps. so to even out the load and wear on the tires, this is my logic to rotate the tires side-to-side on my staggered 3IS.

4WDrift

Left and Right wear IS different on RWD cars due to the separate braking force on the fronts and forward drive force on the rears, and can be as well for FWD / AWD. Since the fronts generally see the hardest action braking, the trailing edge of a forward rolling tire will wear first, like an eraser scrubbing along.

For the Left Front this means the left edges (looking from the outside) of the tread blocks as they contact the pavement, and the RF the right edges. Reverse the above for the Rears from the drive torque wearing the leading edges, the first contact as the tire tries to spin. So the tread blocks get a feathered pattern eventually. For staggered sets, side to side rotation is necessary to even out the wear. Run your palms around each tire both right (clockwise) and left (CCW) to notice the slight difference in feel. I get close and personal with my cars. Don't use lube though.

FWDs wear out the fronts more evenly from both braking and acceleration, but 2-3x faster than the rears due to the fronts doing 70-80% of the drive / braking work. So F / R along with side / side rotation is a must if possible. AWDs benefit as well if the wear isn't uniform.

Symmetric and asymmetric (different outer / inner patterns) tires can always be side swapped generally. The major reason to remount (flip) any tire is from excessive shoulder wear from cornering, though unidirectionals may benefit also due to the above discussed wear and inability to rotate F / R on staggered sets. You should be running a higher PSI before cornering wear happens, though ride may get harsh if going too high.

With staggered sets, I always buy a performance asymmetric over unidirectional for the ability to side swap. The rain advantage of unidirectionals is very slight over asymmetric / symmetric today and asymmetric generally gives the best handling performance.

The mechanic's idea of having a pulling issue is his opinion, you could agree or not depending on if you're getting even wear or not as I've discussed above. What would really benefit is a rebalance as I've never had any tire stay balanced throughout its lifetime.

AMNss

Mine are asymmetrical so I had to take the tire off to rotate them, thats why I was reluctant to do it and waited too long. Anyway I replaced the tires today and it seems that there is no need for rotating the tires except if you are driving aggressively on a daily based.
Rotating asymmetrical tires is a hassle ( costly and your chances of scratching the rims are higher!) . However symmetrical tires are easy to be rotated, so why not.

4WDrift

I think everyone is confusing the term 'asymmetric' - different inside / outside shoulders, with 'unidirectional' - meant to drive forward in 1D only, what I'm assuming you have on. There are many performance tires made either way, but very few with both patterns to make either F / R or side swapping (especially with staggered sets) more of a possibility.

wthrman2

^^ I agree....My understanding is that unidirectional is what you don't want to screw up.

AMNss

I have the asymmetrical, but it is non-directional. I removed the tires and fliped them , since the inside wears much faster than the outside.

criticalgt

My question to you is how did your tires last 20k miles?

4WDrift

Gotcha; may want to check toe alignment, unless you're really stanced.