Tire rotation

[Old smart]

Originally Posted by E-SMART

... As far as the smaller front's, the smart brochure (besides understeer) states its for 'slicing through' snow of all things! (I'm looking for the exact text but do remember reading it)

That's not at all off-the-wall. Just look at the narrowness of the tires used in ice racing and the Nordic stage rallys.

[eqwalker]

Originally Posted by jonnysan

Extend the life of your tires by 2X if you rotate them every 6,000 miles. In other words, if you never rotated your tires they would last half as long as if you DID rotate them. Once they become scalloped in the front, the *rolling* tire will scallop due to not being scuffed clean by friction like a drive tire would be. And once the tire is scalloped badly, it is more difficult, if not impossible to *clean them up* by putting them on a drive wheel so you just have to replace them because they are so noisey and/or rough riding.

Unfortunately due to the different wheel and tire sizes on the smartie, rotation cannot be done and it is not recommended to put the smaller front on the rear for any reason other than a short distance run as a spare in the case of a flat tire.

I just changed my front wheels over to 5.5X 15 with 175-55R-15 tires bought new from Tire rack (continentals) I was fortunate to find someone who had replaced their brand new stock wheels with something else and had rear stock wheels (9 spoke alloy) available to buy so I bought a set of rears from him to put on the front..

I feel doing this was a win-win because the car rides better at Interstate speeds of 65-80 (not inclined to be so *steery*) whereby the skinnier tires (the 155's)followed the road grooves more readily than the slightly wider 175's did. The second win is that now I can rotate my tires front to rear or crisscross every other rotation and optimize my tire mileage....all part of economizing every where we can.....

Doesn't make sense to gain .5 mpg or alittle more with a skinnier tire on the front (if that is the reason..not sure what the engineering reason is... )only to have to trash the tires prematurely because you can't rotate them.....so this is a no brainer to me.

There is negligible difference in offset (.060" or 1.5MM) to make any difference in handling or any other front end geometry parameter that I can see.(Front wheel is 22mm, rear is 23.5mm offset) although the wheel is an inch wider. So far, doing this change to me has been a big plus....

John

Would you post some pics of how your car looks with the wider tires on the front? I would like to see how it looks before I would consider the same thing.

[msjohnson1974]

Originally Posted by jonnysan

Rather than the rule then, especially with an Explorer. Like many 4x4's, you can hear them growling down the road before you even see them.
Ask a tire guy...he'll tell you about the benefits of rotating tires....and he sells tires!

John

4x4 Explorer in Atlanta, funny... actually they're hard to find here. I'm really just going on my experience with the BMW and an observation on the Exploder. I know that it can be beneficial - like on my first car but I'm not going to be overly concerned with it on the smart. Like I said to each his own... I'm overly attentive to other maintenance areas though.

[Old smart]

Neither the US nor the Euro Operators Instructions say anything about rotating tires side-to-side, just not to rotate front-to-back.

Perhaps The Tire Rack or Continental would have guidance on changing their direction of rotation side-to-side.

[Karl Roth]

Sent an email to continental tire and asked about reversing rotation on the tires on our cars they promised a response in 24 hours....
karl

[rfernatt]

Originally Posted by eqwalker

Would you post some pics of how your car looks with the wider tires on the front? I would like to see how it looks before I would consider the same thing.

I love the idea and would second the request for pics! I'm interested to hear about the experience over time and in various conditions with the larger fronts. Other than the investment up front (pun intended), it does sound like a win-win.

[jonnysan]

Originally Posted by eqwalker

Would you post some pics of how your car looks with the wider tires on the front? I would like to see how it looks before I would consider the same thing.

I'll take some this weekend and get them posted.

john

[jonnysan]

Originally Posted by msjohnson1974

4x4 Explorer in Atlanta, funny... actually they're hard to find here. I'm really just going on my experience with the BMW and an observation on the Exploder. I know that it can be beneficial - like on my first car but I'm not going to be overly concerned with it on the smart. Like I said to each his own... I'm overly attentive to other maintenance areas though.

And he suggested that maybe due to smoother better roads in the south, tires get a break from the potholes and other road impairments we have here in the NE. That is a possibility.....

John

[limey]

Please bear in mind that smart has spent millions developing and testing this car and has set up all the electronic driving aids to work with the std tires. A small change like larger front tires may not seem significant, but one day when you swerve to avoid something in the road it could be enough to trip up the cars systems and who knows what could happen.

[SmartDigger]

why not put 175/55R15 on the front rims and be done with it. will the front rims go on the back and back on front?