You can enjoy a smooth and safer ride while helping your vehicle tires last longer with regular tire rotation and wheel balancing.

Tire Rotation. In normal driving, your front tires wear more on the shoulders because they handle much of the cornering forces in turns. Front-wheel-drive vehicles have even more force on the front tires. We rotate the tires to give equal tread-wear opportunity for all four tires.

Your tire manufacturer will have a recommendation for how often you should rotate your tires. This may be somewhere around 3,000 to 8,000 miles. There are different rotation patterns, depending on your vehicle manufacturer’s requirements, which may even include rotating with a spare tire. Some high-performance vehicles have different size tires, which can also limit rotation placement. Your service advisor here can help you perform the right tire rotation for your vehicle.

Wheel Balancing. Balancing adds small weights to the wheel for smooth cylindrical balance and avoid tire bulges and wobbling. Slight variations in the tire and wheel can cause an imbalance. The valve stem and the tire pressure monitoring sensors (TPMS) in the tire also factor in the balance equation.

A small difference can cause annoying vibrations at certain speeds, depending on the frequencies of the vibrations. The wheel is essentially bouncing as it rolls down the road. At city freeway speeds, an out-of-balance wheel can be slamming into the road 14 times each second, causing your tires to wear out more quickly.

If a front wheel is out-of-balance you may feel the vibration through the steering wheel. If a rear wheel is out-of-balance you may feel the vibration through your seat. If you are getting bad vibes from your vehicle, come in to see if balance is the issue. You should at least balance your wheels whenever you get a new tire or remount a tire like after removal for a flat repair.

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