Since getting some lower-priced tires, I decided that I wanted to do everything I could to lengthen their life… this is a new thing for me. Don’t judge.

Time to rotate the tires.

There is a great video from Brad at TrailRecon on how to rotate 5 tires and it was the method I used. I would shy away from just rotating 4 tires because you will run into a situation, like I did, where you have a brand-new tire mixed in with tires that are almost toast. No Bueno.

Check out the video: How to do a 5 Tire Rotation on a Jeep – Cooper STT Pro Tire Wear

I plan on rotating them about every 3,000 miles and this is what they looked like on the first rotation compared to the unused spare tire.

Rotating them was the easy part… I’m going to go on a tangent now that may go over the 1min mark but this is important.

TORQUE YOUR LUG NUTS!!! When you think you did it, DO IT AGAIN!!! Go ahead and do it a third time. Here is why…

On the last wheel, the driver’s side front, I happened to notice oil pooling on top of the lower ball joint and that oil was slung all over the wheel well and down the underside of the body. Interesting. After doing some more digging I realized that the front axle seal must be bad and that I would need to take it to the dealership to get it fixed. I scheduled that and had to run some more errands later in the day.

Just down the road from my house there was a loud BANG, a flash of something black in front of me, and the Jeep taking a dive towards the driver’s front. Once settled, I kept the Jeep on the road far enough to duck into a church parking lot. I hopped out and looked back towards the road just in time to see the wheel roll through the ditch and fall over right at my feet…

I got out and you see above that I used my brake rotor as a tire for a short period of time. This is not recommended. LUCKILY, this was really the only damage other than the fact that it ripped the front fender off but they are not painted and I just ordered a pack of replacement clips so I repaired it a little and stuck it back on the body.

I used my Hi-Lift on the slider to lift the body high enough to get the factory jack under the axle and used some spare lug nuts I had to reattach the wheel and limp home with my pride in the dumpster.

All in all, I ended up just replacing the rotors and pads and all was well. There is some permanent damage to the (brand new) wheel but it isn’t serious. I have pretty high clearance bumpers so I was okay but if this had happened on a nice, expensive truck/car or something, it would be a different story.

TORQUE YOUR LUG NUTS!!! 3 TIMES!!! I know I will be. Dang.