No joke, no Smoke. Your Jaguar owner’s manual really says this: Do NOT rotate your tires. Seriously, it ways not to.

I’ve had a FWD car all my driving life until now. Always invested in winter tires for the car, and always let my dealer or tire supplier rotate my tires for me each year or so.

I GUESS I will reluctantly follow the Jaguar instructions,… but what do you owners think about this?
Did you know Jaguar says don’t rotate on the XE?
Do you feel okay following it, or are you a religious “even treadwear” advocate?

Anyone know any facts that would make a European car maker tell you NOT to rotate your tires?

 

Jaguar used to advocate tyre rotation but stopped recommending this about the time they introduced some models fitted with directional tyres and different size wheels front and rear.

You may have noticed how owner's documentation has become standardised across the model ranges. Tyre rotation probably got in the way of this simplification.

I used to rotate but haven't done so for at least fifteen years. Not noticing any uneven tread wear after a while persuaded me this was a routine I could safely avoid.

Graham

 

When I had a 1980 XJ Series 3 in the late 80s Jaguar made the same recommendation, but went much further, saying to always replace with a full set of four tyres if possible. Well, of course, this is a council of perfection as most people I know wear out the rears before the fronts so replace the rears only. Then what happens if you get an unrepairable puncture with the opposite tyre with plenty of life in it ? Most people would just replace the punctured tyre, as I would do myself. I have only once replaced a full set of tyres in my life and it was on my last car, an X350 when the rears wore down and this coincided with the fronts finally needing replacement. On our X350/358 cars the wear rate is about 2 rear sets to one front.

Having said all that there is really no need to rotate tyres and with many Jaguars having different tyre sizes front to rear it is impossible anyway. My own MG TF has different width tyres front to rear.

 

Personally I have always swapped front to rear and rear to front on the same side on every change between winter and summer tires, and this on all cars I had so far. That equalized the wear and avoids that one axle wears a lot faster than the other.
But even on tires without a set direction of rotation I would never change between the sides. The idea of having a left rear wheel that has run in on the respective toe and camber suddenly running into the other direction following the right front toe and camber just didn't feel right.
As a boy I learnt this same side swap from my father to equalize wear, maybe that's the main reason for doing it like that, old habits die hard.
Since most tires in our cars' speed classes are directional anyway by now, the question to change sides does hardly come up anyway.