Since I've bought my first Jeep, I've decided that I am going to do as much of the mods and maintenance I can by myself. To date, the only thing done by someone else was the mount and balance of my wheels. Not too bad so far.

Anyhow, time to rotate tires and I'd rather not screw this up.

Given: I have Dick Cepek FC IIs, including the spare.

Couple of questions...
1. Can I/Should I rotate in the spare for greater tread life???
2. I know (well, at least think I know) that with older, steel-belted radial tires it was a bad idea to change the direction of rotation (i.e., switch sides) due to the potential for tread separation. Should I be concerned about this with DC FC IIs?

Bottom line is to either

1. Swap front and rear tires, leaving the spare out of the equation, and keep the tires on the same side of the Jeep,

OR

2. Rotate the spare to the rear right, shift the rear tires forward (crossing over), and the front tires to the rear, front right would become the spare. Did that make sense?

Your input and advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

I personally do the 4 tire rotation with the X pattern as shown below.

 

This has been discussed here.

https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/stock-jk-tech-12/tire-rotation-including-matching-spare-13022/

 

Thanks for the quick reply, and I did see those threads. But more specifically, are the Dick Cepek FC II Tires the kind that should only be spun in one direction? Their tread suggests that they can be swapped (unlike the Baja Claws), and I'd really hate to switch sides only to have a tread separate.

 

I would suggest this:

 

This is what i have done on my lib and will do on my rubi. i also like the 20% increase in tire wear

 

that, plus if I blow a tire half way through its tread life, I have a spare tire that matches the others instead of having one a brand new tires and they don't match.