Knucklebus

As the title says, on an AWD car, which tires will wear quickest if not rotated?

I bought this car used so I do not know when the tires were last rotated. My gut says the rears would wear quicker since they are pushing the car but the fronts would probably wear more on the edges due to steering.

I have Continental DWS tires and the "S" is all but gone on the front tires but still visible on the rears. So, either they need to be rotated or they were rotated before I bought it but I don't know.

GregCanada

Depends on how you drive, lots of hard cornering will wear the front faster but usually the rears go first on a RWD biased vehicle.

jtrue28

Isn't the AWD still 60/40 or 70/30 (rear/front), unless it's in "Snow" mode (50/50)? Any car I've ever had, the fronts always wear quicker. Must be the turning.

Knucklebus

Not sure, I've never NOT rotated tires except on my staggered muscle cars and they age out before they wear out. On my cars, the fronts wear the edges off but the tread is fairly even otherwise.

The GS AWD is a fairly heavy car at nearly 2 tons. Even at 30F/70R power split, the front does all of the turning and 80% of the braking but the rear does most of the pushing and has a 54F/46R weight ratio. The weight alone should cause the greater wear since a FWD car will wear out tires well below any warranty rating if not rotated while the rears merely keep the bumper from dragging.

praetor

In general the front will wear quicker as there is a lot more weight applied to front of the car during braking and turning.

samsausage

Just from looking at my own tires on my AWD, it's hard to tell as I do rotate them every 5k miles. They are wearing very evenly for me on this car. If I had to guess, I would say the fronts will wear out a little faster, but that's just from my general observation with this car and no actual science.