Does Driver Side have most weight on tires?

The manual says cross not required. Send me your manual, I’ll pay for shipping.

 

I always thought the front tires wear more because it's a front wheel drive and also there is additional wear when you are turning the car constantly. Does the weights on the tire have an relevance?

 

Manual says to just swap front to rear, no cross rotation. Not sure why; a first for me. I've stuck with the manual instruction; it does mean two wheels have little curb rash.

 

For best directional control and stability during upsets and emergencies, tires should still be well matched side-to-side. So if there is enough left-to-right tread difference to matter at all, I'd be asking why. E.g. is there an alignment problem causing uneven wear?

That is more commonly a tire issue, not a car issue. Check the tire maker's owner's pamphlet. All my non-directional tires over the past several decades have allowed cross rotation.

As Mendel points out, the Prius Owner's Manual shows just a front-rear swap, no cross rotation. I suspect that as just a simplified recommendation so they don't have to tell owners to go look at the tire OM to determine whether or not cross rotation is allowed.

 

front gets more pressure, i wonder why

 

Front wears faster partly due to being the drive wheels, but also because there's normally quite a bit more weight on them, especially Gen 2 & 3. I think it's about 60% on the front.

As for left and right, the engine and transaxle are not symmetrical in weight. I read somewhere that the right side is a bit heavier. Not enough to offset the weight of an adult behind the wheel, but it brings it closer to even.

 

Second that. I rotated my tires last weekend, 3 tires were at 6mm tread depth in all 3 grooves but one tire was 7mm on all 3 grooves. That tire so happened to be on the left side of the car, for the record all 4 tires were purchased at the same time and I don't take hard corners nor majority of turns are right turns.

 

For many years it was front to rear and vice versa.

Now, for front wheel drive cars, the cross rotation of the rear cross to the front and front directly is recommended by the tire manufacturers.

 

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=43&

 

That one appears to be snipped from a larger graphic from Discount Tire:

"There are many different tire rotation patterns. Both tire and vehicle type will determine which pattern is best to follow. The different rotation patterns are illustrated below. ..."


Here are some others ---

Bridgestone:
"The tire rotation pattern that’s best for your vehicle will depend on the type of tire you’re using, whether your vehicle is front, rear, all, or four-wheel drive, whether your tires are directional or non-directional, whether or not your tires are the same size on the front and rear of your vehicle, and whether you have a full-size spare that can be rotated through as well, unlike a temporary spare.. Let’s take a look at tire rotation patterns recommended by the standardizing body of the tire industry, The Tire and Rim Association, Inc., for all of these possibilities."

Discussions of these, and more patterns for other situations, are on that page.

MIchelin animated graphic:


Tirerack.com



I'm sure that you can find more tire market supply chain voices on this.

 

Here's my 2 cent comment.

Yes - front drive vehicles should wear the power tire more than the other three.
Aligment - OEM camber and toe settings can wear the insides of the front tire at an uneven rate than the rest of the threads.
The crown of the road - can wear the driver side tires more than the passenger side.

Now - here what is done with many performance cars.
Place a 100lbs sand bag in the drivers seat.
Then corner weight the vehcile (typically with ride height adjustments, which I don't beleive Prius' has, so this may not be possible)
Then get a custom alignment of toe and camber (another co-member may have a good spec for Prius', yet I understand aligning the rear suspension of a Prius is an issue)
Lastly once set, moniter your tire wear to find an ideal pressure for even wear.
A pryometer tool can be valuable in seeking alignment and tire pressure setting.

Good luck.

 

As far as I can recollect, Honda's always said straight back and cross to front. Our son's got a Mazda CX-5 and I believe the same applies.

Still, keeping them on same side with our Prius I found the wear quite uniform as well.

 

Since I couldn't find any specific tire rotation info on my Yokohama Avid Ascend GTs, I committed the cardinal sin of checking the owners manual. On page 594 of my Prime's manual I found this:

 

The front back method assumes that the car is symmetrically loaded for the majority of the cars use. However, most all cars, and even most vehicles, are usually driven with the driver only. I prefer the "forward cross" method, however, because it rotates the tires to compensate for the 100 pounds plus constant additional moving load on the driver's side front tire. Theoretically, there would be additional wear on that tire due to the higher load.

 

Here are the corner weights as measured by Car&Driver, 2010 trim IV with no driver and a full tank of gas: