BRP actually
DID recommend rotating the front tires by flipping them on their rims & swapping them across to the other side on earlier Spyders, not sure if they still do; :dontknow: but I thought that recommendation was for every 10,000 miles?!? nojoke
However, while there
are some circumstances where rotating tires is warranted (your car maybe??) I believe that in the case of our Spyders/Rykers (if actually still applicable) this was largely an attempt to reduce the 'usually present' abnormal tire wear that occurs up front due their generally useless alignment specs (toe out?!) & often very poor actual alignment from the factory! :yikes: So
IF you've had your Spyder/Ryker aligned properly by someone who knows what they are doing, so that your Spyder/Ryker now doesn't have any handling/steering issues;
AND you are either lucky enough to have got a reasonable set of OE Spec Kendas,
OR you've swapped to 'real' tires up front, then you probably don't need to worry about doing that! :thumbup:
Besides, changing the 'usual rotation direction' of any tire after it's 'bedded in' can occasionally create issues with the bond between the various compound layers, &/or with the thread plies & steel belts inside the tires... this is especially the case with directional radial tires, where the tread pattern won't work so well running 'backwards' either; & on top of that, any abnormal wear pattern in your tire's tread created over anything much more than a
MAXIMUM of saay about 1000 miles is going to be pretty much impossible to correct by changing the alignment &/or swapping/rotating tires anyway.... :banghead: And even at as little as 1000 miles of 'poor wear', the adverse handling & steering that you'd likely get if you rotated the tires as per instructions & had your Spyder/Ryker aligned appropriately in an attempt to 'scrub the poor wear out' & get the tire back to a 'proper tread wear pattern' would likely be shorts staining scary at best, and bloody dangerous if not deadly otherwise!! :gaah:
All that said, if you've had your alignment done properly and you've got a good set of tires up front, then rotating them as per the 'flip on the rim & swap sides' instructions
probably won't hurt
much (there's always
some risk of damage whenever you remove/remount a tire on a rim! :sour: ) But it
WILL hurt your wallet &/or take time & effort to do it properly - and unless you have non-directional tires fitted, it's
DEFINITELY NOT just a case of taking the wheel off one side & putting it on the other!!
ESPECIALLY if you are running the OE Spec Kendas - they are directional
AND very lightly constructed (often poorly at that!) so that those 'issues with the bond between compound layers & plies, steel belts, etc' are already a significant risk, which means that if you
DO run them on the other side &/or the other way, you are very likely to actually
create those &/or even worse problems,
still without fixing any abnormal wear issues!! :gaah: .....All problems that would've been avoided if you'd just left them where they were to start with and addressed the
REAL alignment & tire wear problems properly in the first place; instead of mucking around with an 'at best' dodgy attempt to eke better tire life out of your tires by rotating them from side to side at any milage!! :shocked:
Your best bet?? IMHO, just get your alignment done properly by someone who knows what they're doing; wear the Kendas out as quickly as you can (if you can stand them that long!) and once you remove them, fit better quality tires; then forget about ever 'rotating the tires' again! :thumbup:
hyea:
