Here's the situation:
I have a slightly used set of 35's that I'm putting on for the first time this week. the prior owner never rotated them. they are evenly warn in pairs, meaning two are slightly more warn than the other two, and the spare was never used.

I plan to only use these for trips going off road, so that means a long drive to the trails, off roading, and a long drive home. so maybe 2,000 miles in a season, maximum. I'm a big believer in a 5 tire rotation.

with all that said, where do I mount the more warn tires? Front or rear? And where should I start the never used tire (formerly the spare) ? I'm hoping to even there wear patterns.

 

I'd say put the most worn pair up front. As for the other three, if you're sure that you want to add the unused tire into a 5 tire rotation, you might have to get creative. Maybe put the unused tire in one of the rear spots. When it comes time to rotate, move it over to the other rear location and switch in the tire that was on the spare. Do this every time you rotate, but always keep the tire that was originally unused on the road. The fronts you'll have to flip-flop back and forth every time. It's almost like two separate rotations. One for the front two tires and one for the three tires in the rear. Hopefully after a year or two the wear should even out. Then you could go back to a normal five tire rotation. Does this make any sense?

 

I agree with the 3 tire and 2 tire separate rotation idea, but I'm thinking about using the new spare in with the two older tires to a) more quickly even things out, and b) to slow down the overall aging process of the entire set by always keeping one of the most worn tires off the road as spare.

I think your basic premise is that the rears wear faster than the fronts? This is the key question.

maybe I should change my question to; what wears faster, front tires for rear tires?

 

The rears definitely will wear faster than the fronts. I never rotated the stock Deulers and it's pretty amazing how much more worn the rears were than the fronts in just 12K miles. I have pics of the difference but Photobucket is down and I can't get to them.

 

This makes more sense. I would put the two worn tires in the back so that the newer tires can get some more action with tire wear.

 

That's what I always thought. But some folks are reporting the opposite. This sure would make life easier.

 

I do a 5 tire rotation basically spare to RR, RR to RF, RF to LR, LR to LF and LF to spare. I would out the newest tire to the RR then so it stays on the vehicle the longest with this rotation. (search rearward cross tire rotation)

 

That's exactly what I did with my DDers, which I also got used and the spare was unused, but the other 4 were evenly worn, and they are DDers, so they'll get much more drive time.

I think I'll put the two newer tires up front since I believe they'll wear faster, and perhaps more importantly, I'm much less likely to have DW that way.