fjurado1

The C-Pattern is the best rotation. Just as long as the rear tires show no signs of camber wear.

P.S. I would not recommend the 5 tire rotation, just always check the spare's tire pressure.

bob2200

Back in the "old-days", it made sense. You rotated clockwise or counter-clockwise from the spare and only had to jack each corner up once. With today's rotation restrictions, you really need a lift, or a frame jack and 4 jack-stands, to conveniently do rotations.

I had one pair of OEM tires wear first, so I swapped one with the spare and just had to buy one OEM-like tire. I have a 2002 RX300 and the spare tire and alloy rim are identical to the others.

My decision point will come when the 2nd OEM tire pair starts to need replacement.

shaloo

My 06 LS 430 has a full sized matching rim and tire like the other 4 sitting on the ground. The book gives you a 4 tire rotation and a 5 tire rotation, so you can decide whether to use the spare or not.

I like the idea of a clean spare, but I don't like giving money away except to charity. On my other vehicle (truck), which had a full size spare but not a matching rim, after 150K miles, my spare was still "new" and when I went in to buy new tires, I bought 3 new ones, and told the tire manager to remove the spare from the rim and mount on the aluminum rim, and then put the best of the other tires on the spare. Worked for me.

Lexmex

I never do 5-tire rotation down here, but if I did I would be doing rotations a lot more often than I currently do at 6,000 miles (along with balancing). I estimate now that I get 25,000 miles out of my 5ply Mexican standard 235-70-16 Cross Terrains on the Mexico City streets here. I have friends with fancy Mercedes who go only 15,000 miles or so and they PO'd off.