DIY Tire Rotation
Posted: Tue May 27, 2014 5:04 am
So I rotated my tires myself today for the first time. What a major pain in the ass. I usually have a shop do it for the convenience, but after watching the last guy do it at NTB so slowly and apathetically (not to mention not as advised by the owner's manual), I wanted to do it myself.
I drove my car to a level parking lot and used a small hydraulic jack, a jack stand, and the Kizashi's emergency scissor jack for the first time. I hate the way you use the lug nut wrench and the hub cap pry tool as a crank. It's just awful to use as they come loose frequently and cranking takes much longer than a traditional crank tool would.
The jacking points on the Kizashi are also miserable. There is no space to jack the car on the boss and then also put a jack stand there. The central jacking point for the rear is so far up that you need a full size garage jack to use it. I had to use both the small hydraulic jack and the scissor jack diagonally on the bosses to put in a jack stand yet on another side. This was the only way I could get two diagonal wheels off the ground simultaneously.
Now I see why the guy at NTB did the front to back/back to front instead of the diagonal cross-swap as indicated in the owner's manual for non-directional tires like our OEM Dunlops. He was also using a hydraulic jack on the ground instead of a lift.
Honestly, having the car on a lift and getting them cross-swapped is well worth the $20 shops charge.
I was wondering how the others here rotate it themselves. Honestly, I can only see it being easy if you have a full size hydraulic jack and have 4 jack stands. You'd only have to jack the front and rear at their centers once and place jack stands all around for all wheels to come off simultaneously. Then, you could do a diagonal cross-swap rather painlessly without wasting so much time jacking the car up and down on different sides.
I also want to note the owner's manual is very confusing. It says to not use the boss for the car's scissor jack with jack stands. However, in the graphic, that's where the jack stands are supposed to go. Huh?
See below (taken straight from the owner's manual):
I drove my car to a level parking lot and used a small hydraulic jack, a jack stand, and the Kizashi's emergency scissor jack for the first time. I hate the way you use the lug nut wrench and the hub cap pry tool as a crank. It's just awful to use as they come loose frequently and cranking takes much longer than a traditional crank tool would.
The jacking points on the Kizashi are also miserable. There is no space to jack the car on the boss and then also put a jack stand there. The central jacking point for the rear is so far up that you need a full size garage jack to use it. I had to use both the small hydraulic jack and the scissor jack diagonally on the bosses to put in a jack stand yet on another side. This was the only way I could get two diagonal wheels off the ground simultaneously.
Now I see why the guy at NTB did the front to back/back to front instead of the diagonal cross-swap as indicated in the owner's manual for non-directional tires like our OEM Dunlops. He was also using a hydraulic jack on the ground instead of a lift.
Honestly, having the car on a lift and getting them cross-swapped is well worth the $20 shops charge.
I was wondering how the others here rotate it themselves. Honestly, I can only see it being easy if you have a full size hydraulic jack and have 4 jack stands. You'd only have to jack the front and rear at their centers once and place jack stands all around for all wheels to come off simultaneously. Then, you could do a diagonal cross-swap rather painlessly without wasting so much time jacking the car up and down on different sides.
I also want to note the owner's manual is very confusing. It says to not use the boss for the car's scissor jack with jack stands. However, in the graphic, that's where the jack stands are supposed to go. Huh?
See below (taken straight from the owner's manual):