<VV> tire rotation--Chevy's recommended and then and now

[HallGrenn at aol.com]

Bill,
I'd say you were right for today and today's cars.  My point of  bringing 
it up was that Chevy changed their rotation recommendation in '68 (and  maybe 
'69 Owner's Manuals were the same).  For the Corvair they said to buy  
tires in sets of two and install them on the back.  Prior to this they  
recommended standard rotation patterns the same as other Chevys.  This was  when 
bias ply tires were the norm and radials weren't that common nor as good as  
they are today.  My then new '68 got about 12,000 miles on  the back bias ply 
tires at 30 psi--they do a lot more work back  there--especially the way I 
was driving.
If the fronts are inflated to the four or so pounds higher than  Chevy's 
stock 15 psi recommendations to, say, the 20 pounds I used then  they had 
little wear.  Back then the original equipment Uniroyals on the  front started 
to crack after the first two sets of new back tires.  So new  tires went on 
the front and were rotated back as a set because they were hardly  worn after 
over thirty thousand miles.  When we were driving our Corvairs  daily (on 
longer-wearing modern radial tires) I swapped them as sets  at between 5,000 
and 10,000 miles--front to back and back to front.
 
Bob
 
 
 
In a message dated 7/13/2012 10:18:32 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
lechevrier at q.com writes:

>  just replace them two at a time with the new tires starting at the  
front.

Maybe that was 1968 advice, but no longer is preferred or  recommended -- 
new tires go on the back.  Numerous references online  and in our own 
archives.

65# is plenty tight for those little  Corvair wheel studs

Bill  Strickland