Was not sure where to put this topic, but I hope this is a good place, if not move it. :arf: I have been rotating my Nitto NeoGens front to rear. (pretty much standard procedure). Can I rotate the Gens LF to RR and RF to LR on the MINI. Is this a bad idea for this tire type. I suspect the tire structure prevents cross rotation, but I had to ask. Thoughts, after you all stop :lol: :lol: :lol: :incazzato: Don
Nitto NeoGens look to be a directional tire meaning that to swap side to side you would need to dismount them from the wheels and remount after flipping them around for the other side. I base this solely from the picture of the tread design on the Nitto site. Best to look at the sidewall and see if there is a rotation direction arrow. If so, it's a PITA, if not, go for it.
I was wondering the same thing about my NeoGens. I don't see a rotation arrow, the tires just say "Outside" on them. Mark
Neo Gens are asymmetric (they have an inner and an outter sidewall) - not directional (even though they look like they should be). With that tread pattern, it always looks like one side is "backwards". Cross rotation is fine and recommended (by me)... otherwise the tread blocks tend to wear funny.
The manual says not to rotate (I wonder why it does?) but I also rotate mine about every 5K. My last set of Kumhos - which are not known for their long life - lasted over 30K this way. However, I mark them and only move them front to back on the same side, I found that when I cross rotated them they were very noisey, moving them back to the correct side quieted them down again considerably - just FYI. I didn't have my '03 with the NeoGens on it long enough to learn whether they can be cross rotated, but based on the tread design, I would think you wouldn't want to do that.
I'm with Blimey on this. One side looks backwards, thread wise, so cross rotating them seems the way to go. Mark
Minidave makes a good point. You either need to cross rotate the Neo Gens frequently (maybe even more like 3K, certainly no more than 5k) or not cross rotate them. The tread blocks will wear unevenly and, once they do, they will be noisy and maybe even squirrelly when put on the other side.
Wow, thats quite a bit. Assuming it takes 15 min to perform the rotation from start to finish it will you 750 hours to rotate the tires 3,000 times. Hope you have a good jack!
And if he does it at 3,ooo mile intervals, he'll have 9 million miles on those tires - well rotated indeed!
Good advice, Thanks. Better entertainment. Glad I could offer up a topic. I will try the cross rotation then every 3K myself. If the noise is excessive, then I will probably need a set of new 215/45s. Don