I went to DiscountTire today to ask them if the Lifetime Balance & Rotation I got last year covers my set of staggered rims & tires. I'm questioning it because my setup is (1) staggered and (2) uni-directional. I can't swap wheel & tire front to back OR side to side. What I have to do is have them remove the tires from each side and swap them to the other side. He said this is NOT covered under the Lifetime Rotation and that it would cost $80 total to do the front and rear due to the labor costs of removing and reinstalling each tire. He mentioned that his buddy has a "red one" and does the tire swapping every 6k-8k miles and got 10k miles more out of them. The mileage sounded questionable because I only got 9k out of the first set of rears and the front tires just passed 15k miles; so the second set of rears are at 6k miles right now.

I was questioning whether I should just (1) suck it up and pay the $80 to flip them and just not get the Lifetime Balance & Rotation on my next set of tires or (2) just wear these down and purchase a new set soon. I'm thinking of going back tomorrow and just have them swap the tires to the other side. Ugh, I wish this crossed my mind back when I first got the tires because this was my first staggered & uni-directional tire setup. Lesson learned I guess.

Just a note: If you get tires installed from them or anyone else that has a 'Lifetime Balance/Rotation' equivalent service... don't get it for the S2000. Use the money you save from it and pay to flip the tires over to prolong the wear.

Tires: Falken FK 452
Wheels: Work Emotion Cr Kai

Front: 17x7" @ 225/45/17 (1st set @ 15,000 miles so far)
Rear: 17x8" @ 245/40/17 (2nd set @ 6,000 miles so far)


These tires have seen about 6-8 autocross sessions and 1 HPDE session. They will be seeing another HPDE session next month.

 

I guess that it comes down to how much life do you think that they have left in them as is versus how much life you think that you will get if you have them flipped. Is that difference worth $80.00 to you.

I'd consider asking them to refund the price of the lifetime rotation service that you bought. You might also want to shop around to see if someone else could flip them cheaper.

 

That's exactly what I've been contemplating. I'll try and see if they'll refund the lifetime balance & rotation the next time I go.

 

http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/r...es/tires001.jpg (LR)
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/r...es/tires002.jpg (LR)
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/r...es/tires003.jpg (RR)
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/r...es/tires004.jpg (RR)
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/r...es/tires005.jpg (LF)
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/r...es/tires006.jpg (LF)
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/r...es/tires007.jpg (RF)
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/r...es/tires008.jpg (RF)
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/r...es/tires009.jpg (RF)

The rears seem fine, maybe I should just do the fronts for $40.

 

I don't think flipping the tires are worth it IMO

 

I've run every set of directional tires I've ever owned backward. Dry grip is totally unchanged, and, as bad as wet grip is on the summer tires I usually run, it really isn't hurt that much either. I've actually had a really noisy set of Dunlops (FM901s, maybe?) go nearly silent after flipping them to run backward.

So, in short, flip them side for side, and see what happens. Worst case scenario, you take them right back and flip them back.

 

I also do not think flipping the tires is going to do anything for you. Maybe if they were track tires and the track was harder on one tire than another but that would be the only reason I can see for flipping them.

 

You didn't pay for rotation it's free. You paid for installation and lifetime balance. They'll balance them for free since you paid for that service.

 

The service is "Lifetime Balance & Rotation". As far as I know you have to pay to get the tires rotated if you don't have that service at our locations unless that rule has changed since last year.

I will be getting an alignment soon and setting the Toe to 0 to stop the premature inner tire wear. I'll just wait until these tires are gone and then get a new set or switch to the Dunlop Direzza Z1 Star Spec.