With cars I've had in the past, I've rotated the tires - move the rears to the opposite sides' front and push the fronts back... I tried to do this with my Formula today, but when I started backing out, a scraping noise up front (my front struts scraping the lead weight off my rims) caused me to take a closer look and notice the big block letters just inside the rear rims saying something like "REAR WHEEL ONLY". So I put 'em back...

Do you guys rotate your tires? Remove them from the rims to swap front/rear? Let the tire shop guys take care of it?

My only experience with cars has pretty much come through my own trial and error (no mechanically inclined friend or relative mentors...), so maybe I'm just naive - is this typical of GM cars (or cars in general?)? On previous cars, I could rotate tires around with no problem.

 

No you aren't retarded. Well not due to this anyway.

The wheels you have, as well as all 16" factory 3rd gen. Camaro/Firebird wheels, have different offsets on the front and rear.

The fronts are 0 offset, and the backs are 16mm positive offset. IE, the rears sit closer to the car by 16mm.

GM did this to keep the front track wider than the rear. Which is how just about every street car should be. And plus there's that plate to keep the rear drums from heating up the rear wheels.

Why they didn't just use a narrower rear axle, we'll never know. I think cause that would make too much sense.

AJ

BTW, make sure that the place that you have do it, knows about this. They will charge you more for it.

Sears did mine once, after I told them about it, and they still did what you did. They thought that I was just a dumb customer and didn't know what I was talking about. Could have kicked that Service Rep's ***!!!!!

 

I don't rotate them on my Vette, cause there uni-directional, and front-rear size difference.

But my tires are not 80,000 miles tires, there more like 15,000 mile tires. IF THAT...

Ron

 

Yep, as stated above the wheels have different offsets. One day I was going to do the same, then I noticed the wheels said front and rear. I wasn't sure why, but I figured I better wait and ask my brother.

 

ya, i got my tires at discount tire. and i have free rotation for as long as i have the tires.. can't wait until i go back for my first FREE rotation.

 

Joel,

Another thing to be mindful of is that if you have the 16" wheels on your Formula, you may have directional tires as well (it did from the factory). These tire carcasses are built up so that the ply laminations have a preferential rotation. In one direction, they work fine and tighten the tread cap against the carcass, in the opposite direction they tend to do the "Bridgestone/Firestone" thing and come apart at road speeds. I wouldn't want anyone to do that to a Formula.

Personally, "rotation" of my tires on the T/A has been a matter of installing new rears and "rotating" the old ones into the trash. It isn't worth having some trainee dismounting and remounting tires on my factory cast wheels every 15,000 miles, and having the wheels trashed by ignorance and carelessness. Keep the inflation, balance, and alignment under control, and the tires will last a long time (rear axle wheelspin notwithstanding).

 

What a coincidence! that's exactly what I did today, and the same horrible scraping noise and everything. Great minds think alike

 

Well, maybe I don't feel so dumb anymore... but Jeff, I think you're just trying to make me feel better

 

No, Honestly, I even have a nice gouge on the inside of the rim to prove it! now my rim/tire is off balance because the weight is on the opposite side- well, maybe there was enough meat taken off the rim to compensate