best way/pattern to rotate drive tires.

same side front to rear and rear to front.

should equal out the wear patterns.

of you do the X cross ( RF to LR the wear on the tires is similar )

my little thing turns so hard that i scrub the crap out of the drives.
They only last around 75K mi and steers usually 45K or so

rotation is pretty critical to my tire life.

 

Most trucks will wear the rear rear drive tires faster than the front drives. This is because most of the truck will pivot on the front drive axle when turning and the rear rear axle scrubs more. We measure the tread depth of the tires and when the rear rear tires are about 3/32nds lower than the front drives we will rotate them front to back. Now, sometimes drive tires will experience unique tread wear called "toe to heal" wear. This is with most "mud/snow" tires or tires with an aggressive lug pattern. The big lugs start to wear faster at the rear of the lug compared to the front of the same lug, or irregular every-other lug will wear faster. With wear like this you would need to reverse the direction of rotation and therefor rotate the tires in a criss-cross pattern.

 

We keep track of the tread remaining and base it on that. When the rear rear drive is 3/32nd" lower in remaining tread than the front drive we will rotate then. Some trucks will need rotation more often than others simply because they turn and maneuver more. So the tread wear is a good way to know when. If you are doing it on based on certain mileages this may be counter productive and just a waste of time and money. So keep a tread depth gauge handy when you do your pm. If your front drive, for example, are at 15/32nds and your rears are around 12/32nds then it is time to rotate.

 

That one is pretty good, a good average tire. The XDE M/S is an aggressive tread tire. It is a popular tire that is mostly for off road, regional use and for reason people think it makes a good highway tire. Your XDN2 is a non directional tires which means you can reverse the direction of normal rotation if ever needed.

 

Rotate in an X pattern, that's the way I've been taught. Don't forget to figure the price of the tire rotation, you don't want to over do it. Plus, my favorite tire is the Bridgestone M726 EL. I know with these, you MUST rotate between 20-30k depending on application or they will wear down fast. Ryder had a semi that ran from East to West Coast, got 500,000 miles from a set of drive tires. You can bet tire pressure, alignment and rotation were key. The faster you go, the faster they wear out. Rough acceleration will do it too off the line.