Your vehicle's tires should be rotated every 3,000-5,000 miles in order to prolong their lives and to help maintain your vehicle's handling and safety. Regularly rotating your tires will also cause them to wear evenly and may even keep your tire warranty valid.
As you drive your vehicle, your tires will inevitably wear. The placement and extent of the wear depends on a few different factors. A tire's position on the vehicle will affect wear because each axle has different external forces to deal with. For example, the tires on the front of a vehicle have to deal with more intense forces than the tires on the back axle. In Front-Wheel-Drive vehicles, the tires on the front axle do more work than the tires on the back axle, so they have worse tire wear in the front than Rear-Wheel-Drive or All-Wheel-Drive vehicles have. Also, when comparing wear frequencies, tire wear affects can be seen more on high-performance vehicles than on family vehicles. By rotating your tires and changing their positions, you will cause the tire wear to be evenly distributed. This even tire wear will in return prevent any of your tires from becoming more significantly worn than the other three- ultimately prolonging the lives of all your tires.
As already mentioned, your tires each wear differently, and this can also affect the stability and handling of your vehicle. If your tires are unevenly worn, they will not respond as quickly, thus jeopardizing your vehicle's safety. Luckily, this potentially hazardous situation can quickly and easily be corrected by simply rotating your tires. Tire rotation can also help keep your tire warranty valid, because many manufacturers require the owner to rotate his or her tires. Failure to comply could result in your tire warranty becoming invalid when you need it the most.
For the best results, you should get your tires rotated every 3,000-5,000 miles- an easy way to remember is to get them rotated when you get your oil changed. If your tires are showing severe signs of wear, you should get them checked for mechanical issues. If no mechanical issues can be found, than the wear is probably a result of your driving style, which means you may want to get them rotated more frequently than previously recommended.