Hello,

My 2011 XC60 needs some new front tires. I was just at the dealer having maintenance service done, and they explained that Volvo does not recommend rotating the tires, but moving the rear tires to the front, and replacing only the two in the rear. Their philosophy is that having all of the weight in the front of the car leaves the light-weight rear with less traction, thus the need for a better tread. Kind of makes sense, but I am still trying to decide if I should follow these guidelines or just get a new set of four tires and rotate them on a regular basis. Anyone have experience with this? Any recommendations? Thanks.

 

Volvo has changed their recommendatons so that the free maintenance packages cost them less. The free maintenance packages do not include tire rotations (even with the Wear and Tear package, which includes brakes and wiper blades). So, because customers could argue that tire rotations are wear and tear items, Volvo decided to recommend against tire rotations. I still recommend them as needed to allow even tire wear.

 

Always place the tires with the best tread on the rear axle if there's any significant difference in tread wear or tire traction. This is because if you brake when it's slippery and the rear tires don't hold, then your car will do a quick 180 rotation. Ask me how I know? Happened to my wife's car due to my stupidity in placing the new snow tires on the front of a front wheel drive car in 2004. Later the NTSB decided to tell tire service stores that it was a requirement. Not everyone does it though. Makes sense. Brake hard and the front of car will dip down while the rear will want to lift up and keep going...left or right. Once it goes , it's gone.

 

but the front wheels won't have grip to set off and that's where the power is.

 

Well...this is sort of like going skydiving in an airplane but without a proper parachute. You can get going for sure when you jump, but can you slow down and stop safely without a parachute? Smartest thing is to have good tread on both front and back. Failing that, with most any tread depth you can accelerate using front wheel drive. It's the stopping that will hurt you when the car does a 180° turn in traffic because the rear wheels slipped on snow or ice and would not slow the rear of the car down. I know, it happened to both me and my wife. None of the fancy electronic stabilization controls or ABS are going to help you much once the car is not tracking straight. Try balancing a spoon on your finger with the handle pointing down. You attempt to keep the bowl part of the spoon directly above your finger. When it slips to the side, the bowl of the spoon soon does a 180° and keeps going...down. Same concept.

 

I agree But you will also need alot of tread for the front tyres otherwise you won't be stopping either. Plus if you drive according to the condition the back end shouldn't come out.