I rotated my tires(31-10.5 Bridgestone Dueler AT's) by what the manual calls for which is: left front to right rear,right front to left rear, and back tires straight to the front. On the freeway there was a slight vibration after rotating them, mainly feels like the front tires. It will probably stop after the tires get used to their new positions though. Anyone else have a vibration after rotation their tires?

 

I haven't had that problem with mine after the rotation, but it's not that unusual. A couple of things to check. If you ran with different tire pressures front and back, maybe you have to readjust for the new positions. Also, did the lug nuts get tightened using a torque wrench? If not, the fronts could be over tight, which can cause the rotors to warp and give you a vibration.

 

I 2nd the suggestion to check the air pressure.

Also, how many miles had been on the tires since the last rotation?

 

Another possibilty - if you ran them very long, they adopt different wear patterns. The rears always tend to be worn more in the center and the fronts more along the edges. After swapping, it's very common to hear them and feel them - that's the new load bearing surfaces wearing extra fast until they get sort of 'evened out' again. Rotating more often makes them last longer, but rotating them chronicly late (me guitly!) wears them out faster...

 

Did you have the balance checked.On the rear your not going to feel an unbalanced tire (unless it's way off).

 

I agree. Check the pressure, wear pattern, and have them balanced.

 

I agree with balance. I've had mine done several times until they got it right. Something about lug centric and hub centric....blah blah..

 

Is that on a 4Runner or a p/u? I was told by the people doing my tire balance(on my p/u) that I would feel an out of balance tire on the back more because of less weight in the back.

 

I was told the opposite. Perhaps on a truck you might feel it more due ot the lighter rear, but normally you feel it less in the rear because the rear is not connected to the steering wheel.

 

That is right, you feel it much less on the rear. When I get my tires balanced on either my pickup or car the first thing I do after a test drive is rotate the tires front to back and test drive the rear tires on the front. That's the only way to tell if they did a good job balancing the rear tires. They always do a better job of balancing the front tires. Last week I had my tires balanced and the tech spent about 30 minutes balancing each of the front tires to a perfect zero, then he gets to the rear ones and he's done in half the time. I ask if he got the rears to zero out and he admitted that one was still 1/2 oz off. Well I rotated like always to check the rears out on the front and sure enough there is a shimmy with the rears on the front. So I go back the next day and one of the rears (now on the front) was off by about 1.25 oz. And funny, since it's on the front now they spend a lot of time balancing it. Now I know all 4 are balanced good. You could drive 5000 miles with a tire out of balance on the rear and not even know it, when you rotate it to the front you could find it wore out of round because of the bad balance job and you'll never again get a smooth ride out of it.

I spend too much money on these big tires to let them get falked up by a lazy tech.

 

One thing that really makes me mad is when you are having brand new tires put on and if one of the tires looks out of round they stick it on the rear hoping you'll be 5000 miles away before you rotate and find out you got a lemon tire. So I rotate brand new tires front to back too. I always just rotate front to back, but if I start getting more wear on the outside, I am considering flipping them over and having the white lettering put on the inside. I am getting kind of tired of the white letters showing anyway.