it's going to be my first time doing any car maintenance. I just want a list of tools that are needed for rotating tires.

 

you need jackstands.. a jack.. 21mm socket... uhm.. yea...

(minus the jackstand... there's tools in the trunk)

 

You want to jack up one side of the car at a time, and switch the tires front and rear, as shown in the manual. I do not recommend jackstands. Jackstands are good when using hydraulic jacks, because they slowly leak and settle.

If you use a hydraulic jack to place jackstands, you will have to jack up the rear side and then find a separate point to place the jackstand. Then you will have to jack up the front side and find a separate point to place that jackstand. Look in the owners manual, and there are not that many points to support the car. I do not think you will find a safe place to put all those jackstands while the car is still supported on jacks. I have a 2-ton jack that can lift the whole front or rear at the central jack points, but I doubt it will reach under the low front, and rotation would require getting the whole car up on 4 jackstands.

You need to go to an import junkyard and find a scissors jack from a Honda Civic. It should look almost identical to your xB jack. A ratty one will be $5 and a like new one will be $10. You may have to look in a half-dozen trunks to find one. I have bought 3 of these. Scissors jacks do not settle and need no backup jackstands.

Place 2 scissors jacks front and rear at the official jacking points, loosen the lugnuts, raise the car in equal increments until the wheels clear the ground, and switch the wheels. Repeat on the other side.

 

all you really need are the tools already in the car, tho it's more work. change one tire at a time using the spare tire as a placeholder while you move the other tires around and finish where you started.
Make sure your lugnuts are tourqued right. If you don't have a torque wrench notice how tight the lugnuts are when you remove the wheels and return them to the same level. If they're too tight you could warp your rotors, if they're too loose you'll get uneven tire wear and if they're very loose the wheel could fall off.

 

Jack, jack stands, lug wrenchand torque wrench with right size socket that's about all for proper rotating.

 

Slap the front end of the car up on jackstands.. one on each side....... remove both fronts....... then use a jack to do each rear tire one at a time. Of course, moving tires to their proper places.

 

Front to back and back to front (SAME SIDES)........Do not cross rotate or you'll get radial drag and the car will pull in different directions and wear your ball joints, tie rods, and tires out.

 

That is fine for directional tires but for uni- directional use the X patern for full life out of the tires. Radial drag? What is that about? Pull and wear on suspension parts? you're kidding right

 

Go ahead and try it. I had unidirectional tires on my cavalier and my truck and when i rotated them in the X pattern, instant pull to one side or the other depending on what turn i'm making. This was after an alignment also. The pull of the tires being warn slightly differently from left to right sides of the vehicle begins to throw the alignment off and puts more strain on ball joints and tie rods b/c of the excess pull.

No need to believe me. Just know what I'm talking about from 2 experiences and girlfriend's dad built tires for Kelly Springfield for 20 years. Got a good bit of knowledge from him.

 

If there is pulling of anysort from rotating your tires there are major wear issues with the suspension to begin with. If the tires are wearing right to begin with you should be able to place it anywhere on the vehicle and NOT have it affect the way it drives after rotation.

 

I agree that things SHOULD work perfectly and you should be able to put tires wherever on the vehicle, but due to things not ever being perfect that tires wearing unevenly simply with every day driving, this can not happen and radial pulls are very frequent. Google up radial tire pull or radial pull. many forums have discussions on this problem.

 

anyone know where i'm suppose to put the jackstands on ? Is there a solid frame designated for jacks ?

 

On the xB there are frame channels from like the side mirrors back to place the jack stands.

 

Unidirectional tires are meant to be on the same side of the car for the life of the tire. You should not have used an x pattern to rotate them.

 

That's why I'm saying it will cause a radial pull if you do so. I did so I know what happened.

 

I just had one of my tires mounted and he told me that because it was unidirectional it didnt matter where i put it when rotating the tires.. front to rear or x pattern was all the same. The only time you have to be concerned is with directional tires..they have to stay on the same side for their life time.

 

Sorry web. My confusion came from your first post. No mention had been made about directional (unidirectional) tires at that point in the thread. If you did indeed crossed directional (unidrectional) tires then it could possibly cause a problem. I am surprised you had as much problem as you did. I would not have thought that and I appreciate you sharing that information.

Jethro b.
Also it seems that there is some confusion about the terms here. "Directional" and "unidirectinal" usually refer to the same thing, a tire that is designed to rotate in one direction only. The term for normal tires is "non-directional."

 

Hey, it's all good. Sorry for the confusion.