and i was wandering if i got 2 jacks could i do it myself? instead of wasting like 30 bucks and gettin some car care place to do it? and if i can do it myself is there a certain way to rotate them instead of like front to back, back to front

 

front driverside to rear passenger side
front passengerside to rear driver side

then the rear passenger side goes to the front driverside
and the rear driver side goes to the front passenger side

 

... unless you have directional tires ;oP

 

Yes you can, rotate them like this:

 

that pic is in the owners manual and you can do it with two jacks

 

When I was in college I'd do it w/ my spare and the spare tire jack. Stradle the line between two spots so you have some working room, replace one wheel w/ the spare and move that tire to it's destination. Repeat until you replace the spare w/ the last tire to be moved and call it a day. Kinda a bummer as you have to do 5 tire changes. But it's cheap and easy. Somedays you've got more time than money..

Now I use a set of jackstands and a good 3-ton shop-jack.. Way easier.

The catch is torquing the lug nuts. I never used to worry about it, I'd just secure them as tightly as I could w/ the spare tire tool. Nowadays I'm more **** about it and use an honest to gawd torque wrench.

 

when do we need to change them??? Like how many miles?

I got mine done a while ago like september or august...

 

Every 5000 miles is recommended. Just like it says in Zack's little diagram..

 

well **** i'm well over 10400 miles so i guess i need mine bad so i'm do them saturday but are rangers front or rear wheel drive? i feel like a real noob askin all these questions my truck is a basic 2wheel drive not 4x4

 

REAR. the differential case is a hint

 

I need to get a rotation and might as well get an alignment while im at it.

 

will this mess up your alignment?

 

hell if i know! lol

 

lol ok

 

No. Unless you somehow screw something up terribly bad.

In that picture, the tires are being rotated the exact same way, the arrows just point opposite. I think thats amusing.

 

after 10k miles on my goodyears they started chopping really bad and were hummin down the road. dang things were loud

 

Four jack stands and a jack...

Your set...

 

Your stock goodyears???

Get new ones..

 

Ummmm, no.

In the rear wheel, 4 wheel drive pic, the rears(drive tire) go up front, and the front get rotated to the opposite side rear.

In the front wheel drive pic, the fronts(drive tire) go to the rear, and the rears go to the opposite side front.

Basically, you are moving the drive tires to a non driven position, and the non driven tires to the drive tire position, but changing the direction of rotation.

If you were to turn one of the pics upside down, then they would be exactly the same...

 

I've always just gone front to rear, every 5000. My BFG's are wearing nice and even.

 

front to rear is how they trained me at the garage i worked for a few years ago too...

 

Front to rear on the same side for me, I have seen tire problems rotating them like that before.

 

I just rotated my Goodyear's today because of the loud humming noise. I was doing a search for diff. noise and all the replies said maybe ball-joint's, tierod's and all the expensive stuff to fix. To make a long story short, the tire rotation did the trick, no more humming.

 

They are being rotated the same way. Front to back back to opposite side front.

It doesn't really matter which way you rotate them.

I've always rotated mine front to back and stayed on the same side. I got 6,000 miles out of my BFG m/ts without any visible wear. But I rotate every 3,000.

 

i do the same thing colin does... and while im in there i do a good check of the brakes too