Ok. lets be honest here, 95% of people in this world do not do tire rotations themselves, the fact that some people here seem to suggest that anyone with a high school diploma should be able to rotate tires shows that you haven't mastered the understanding that just becuase something is easy for you to do, doesn't mean that it is easy for everyone else in the world to do.
I am reminded of a recent incident with a coworker whose boiler broke, and her husband insisted on putting the new one in himself to save money. After 2 days of not having any hot water and running back to home depot 6 times for more parts, they finally called a plumber (who by the way had a high school degree but never went to college) who had the boiler installed within 2 hours.
I bet you that plumber thinks installing a boiler is easy and laughs that people with college degrees can't install one.
My point is the way you determine whether most people are able to do something on their own is if they do it on their own. Most people do not rotate their own tires.
Hi, and thank you everyone for your responses. I would like to address 2 points that people have made.
1) "I should not spend $20 and do the tire rotations myself."
Ok, I am a math teacher and when my child has difficulty in math, I didn't go out and hire a math tutor, I helped him myself. Most of you are probably not math teachers and you would hire a tutor or something if you had that problem with your kids.
Now, lets look at the opposite scenario: you people are good fixing cars, therefore you rotate your own tires. The average person is not - that is why they go to an auto place to have their tires rotated. So telling me to rotate the tires myself is not really a viable solution. It is equivalent to me telling you it is not worth it to hire a math tutor, you should teach your child the algebra yourself. I understand that the average person is not able to properly teach their child algebra, just like you should understand the average person is not capable of properly rotating their tires.
2) "Buy your tires at a place that does free tire rotation."
That is not always a realistic option. The places in my area that have free tire rotation (Costco, BJ'S, Sears, Pep Boys, etc.) are at least a 10 mile drive and you have to sit there and wait for around 2 hours or more to have the rotation done. (and no, they don't take appointments for a free tire rotation) In fact, I have a friend who recently told me he bought his tires and BJ's and even though he has free tire rotations, he still has his mechanic do them for $20 becuase it is not worth his 2 hours sitting and waiting for it to be done. Most of you probably earn $20 -$30 an hour, so if you are sitting doing nothing for 2 hours, you are really spending $40 - $60.
I know there are some people who are going to be angry at what I am saying here, PLEASE, I do not mean any disrespect to anyone. I am just trying to point out that I think the 2 solutions people gave are not realistic solutions. The average person spends $20 rotating their tires, they do not do it theirselves or wait 2 hours for the free tire rotation. My original question was, is that worth it or is it just worth it monetarily to buy new tires faster.
And as to the safety factor, I am not sure how not rotating is any different in safety that if you do rotate it. The key is to change your tires when they start wearing. Yes, if you don't rotate that will happen faster. But it should still be perfectly safe as long as you change them when the wearing starts.
Hi everyone. We have all heard a million times that you should rotate your tires so the tread will wear evenly and you will save money. But does it really save money? If you pay $20 every 7500 miles to have your tires rotated, you will end up paying approximately $360 over the life of the car (figuring approx. 18 rotations). That is more than the cost of buying a whole extra set of tires. And that doesn't even talk about the time you save by not having to wait at the mechanic to have your tires rotated. What does everyone think?
