Can't rotate tires because.....

I was told a few minutes ago that you can't rotate the tires from front to rear on a Dodge Ram 3500 because the load rating is different on the front than the rear, is there any truth to this. I have a 2014 Ram

Look at the tires and see what it says on the sidewall. Don't believe everything people tell you. I bet they are all the same. The only problem could be if it's a dually. The rims are different...Don

The tires are all the same but in order to rotate they will have to break down the tires/rims.
Since it will cost roughly $125 per rotation I am not going to rotate and will just run em and wear em out.
The rims will fit in any position but the inner wheels are not aluminum, they are steel.

Peace
Dave

Mine are rotated every 7000 mi on my 3500 DRW Ram. It depends on the rims if they have to be dismounted. Mine don't but have to cross them for the duals to keep the rotation correct.

I have heard that the new tires don't have to keep the same direction of rotation.
And what I have read on a dually forum says to swap the rears left to right and swap the fronts left to right.
These guys say it is better than no rotation and doesn't hurt the tires.

Here is a link to that dually forum http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1362392-duallys-only-106.html

Someone is giving you bad information. I've been in the business twenty five years and have always rotated tires front to back and side to side with no problems. There are a few exceptions to this. If you have mis-matched tires or if you have aluminum wheels they would have to be broke down and re-balanced. I personally have 150k miles on a dually that I rotate every five to six thousand miles without any problems.

You didn't indicate if you have a dually or not. My single rear wheel F350 had two different pressures for front and rear, but that's not an issue. Just takes a couple of minutes to get the correct pressure after rotating.

When it came time to replace our 6 tires my Ford dealer quoted a very competitive price that included free rotation. They get rotated and balanced every 5,000 miles.

Been cross rotating radials for 40 years and never had a failure. It's best to swing them around. Never marked my tires for reassembly.

Huh. We buy our tires from Les Schwab. Tire rotations on request included ($0) for the life of the tires... never had them say it couldn't be done. We have an F350 SRW.

I have the same 2014 RAM 3500 (assuming it is a dually). Just had mine rotated about a month ago at the dealer. No problem. Rims are reversible. It was a little more expensive than a regular rotation (about $40).

Some tires are directional depending on the tread design. Some of the directional tires are the Z rated high speed tires (140 mph plus). Some tires such as the old GoodYear Aqua Tread had a directional tread design to move water from under the tire. Generally LT tires are non-directional. There are some schools of thought that say radial tires need to spin in the same direction when rotated to keep the steel from breaking but I personally have never heard of that happening.

jmgratz said:

Generally LT tires are non-directional.

There are some schools of thought that say radial tires need to spin in the same direction when rotated to keep the steel from breaking but I personally have never heard of that happening.

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That was true in the early days of radial tires . . . but not anymore.

dojljr said:

I was told a few minutes ago that you can't rotate the tires from front to rear on a Dodge Ram 3500 because the load rating is different on the front than the rear, is there any truth to this. I have a 2014 Ram

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If you have a 2014 RAM 3500 as I do with the Alcoa aluminum wheel package that is pretty standard on the "well dressed" models, the rotation pattern is: Front and rear outers can be rotated front-to-rear, same side (no need to cross). The Alcoa wheels are reversible (you just flip them over), the tires do not need dismounting. The inner rear wheels are steel, and those get rotated side to side only.

Anything more than that requires tire dismounting and is probably a waste of money. I've owned RAM 1-ton dually trucks since 1994, and this is the pattern always used unless you have all six steel wheels. By the time you chew up the outer 4 tires with outer edge wear that is inherently caused from towing very heavy trailers, I usually find the inner rears are half-worn any way and might as well replace the entire set. I average about 50-60k out of a set of tires, or usually hit the 5 year mark to replace them due to age before they are truly worn out.

If you do the math, tire mount-dismount and rebalance (plus TPMS care) will cost $25-50 per wheel. Lifetime tire rotation and rebalance plans normally do not cover this extra labor. If you rotate your tires every 10k, and do that over 60K, you've spent maybe $600 on the low side if you are swapping 4 of the 6 tires between the steel and aluminum wheels to enable their front-rear movement. You just bought yourself another 4 tires (avg cost $150/ea) or so in mount-dismount and rebalance costs over the life of the tires. You hit a point of diminishing returns in my opinion. Having been in that industry for many years, I recommend saving that money for new tires.

And our 2015 3500 RAM SRW automagically relearned the tire locations for the pressure reporting system in the first few miles! I would think the dually would also. Chris

2015 Ram 3500 dually - Upgraded to Cooper ST Maxx 255/80/17s - Just rotate lefts to right and right to left every 5k. I have the polished Alcoas so no need to break them down. Tires are much better than stock on wet fire roads/grass...