How to Switch the 5th Tire into Rotation

Series Summary

Rotating the tires on your car is an essential part of ensuring your tires last as long as possible. Rotating truck tires is really no different, except the tires are generally larger and more cumbersome. Though it is a chore, rotating your tires can really be quite easy when you have an expert show you how to do it. If you would like to learn how to rotate your tires for free, you can learn from one of our experts.

In this free video series find out how to rotate the tires on a truck. Watch expert mechanic Nathan McCullough do all the steps necessary for rotating tires including how to jack up a car, how to remove lug nuts, how to remove tires, how to properly seat tires, how to torque lug nuts, how to mount a hub cap, and how to remount a spare tire. Find out more about rotating tires such as what tools are required, and how to switch the 5th tire into rotation. Rotating tires doesn't have to be a hassle; find out how easy rotating tires can be.

Video Transcript

"NATHAN MCCULLOUGH: Hi, my name is Nate McCullough on behalf of Expert Village. In these clips, we're going to talk about the proper way to perform a five-wheel tire rotation. In this clip, I'm going to explain to you exactly what a five-wheel tire rotation is. I have a sheet of paper here with a diagram on it. I'm no Da Vinci but this is going to represent the front axle of the vehicle and my front tires. This here is going to represent the rear axle of the vehicle and my rear tires. This guy right here in the middle is my spare tire. Before you do your rotation, you're going to want to inspect your tires and pick the worst one. Let's just say for the sake of argument that the driver side front is the worst one. What we're going to do is rotate the passenger side front to the rear--let me get my arrow on there a little better for you--and we're going to switch those and instead of doing just the front to rear on the driver side, we're going to take our worst one and switch it with our spare, and we'll just take our spare tire and rotate it in with our worst tire, our front. We're just going to switch these two and we're not going to install the spare where the front one goes. We're going to take the rear wheel and send it up front. When you rotate your tires, you always going to want to end up with the front ones in the back and the back ones in the front. So we're not taking the front and putting it in the rear. We're taking the front and putting it in the location of the spare, putting the spare in the back and putting the back one up front, and that's your five-wheel tire rotation."