BF Goodrich KO2 - 5 tyre rotation setup and frequency?

I'm past 18,000 miles and have now done the 5 tyre rotation 3 times - Can't think many Jimny owners would be bothered doing this exercise (and the garage doesn't do it at service time). Currently it's looking like I'm going to face a rather large bill as all 5 tyres will wear out and need replaced at the one time. On the other hand if I need 4WD - all the tyres have an even tread depth. For 'Lazy Joe' it's far easier to ignore the recommended tyre rotation process and just pay for a new tyre(s) when needed. For certain brands/types of 4X4 technology you can 'damage' the transmission by running around with different tyre depths - so I'm told

The Jimny uses a part time 4 wheel drive system. This means that, when engaged, the front and rear propshafts revolve at the same speed. If you use 4 wheel dive on a hard - read normal road - surface with tyres that have different tread depths then you will get axle wind up. this literally means that the weakest link between T-box and tyres will be twisted and unless this tension is released, something will probably break. On a track natural spin out will release this tension.
If you have uneven wear on your tyres, running in 2 wheel drive on a normal road will not damage the transmission because you have not engaged 4 wheel drive and the diff. in the rear axle will do it's normal job of proportioning variable speeds to each axle as you corner.
This story of damaging something if you have uneven tread wear is another frightener to worry people into buying something they don't need.

Roger

I think I will do the tyre rotations about every 5000 or so km. All 5 of them.

I thought about rotating only 4 but if these tyres last as long as they day, then the spare will be a bit too old when I am into the second set.

Sticking to 4H when using a spare that has more / less tread than the others makes 100% sense.

Groenewald wrote: Sticking to 4H when using a spare that has more / less tread than the others makes 100% sense.

In a Jimny 4H and 4L should only be used on a loose surface (ie not tarmac) irrespective of any slight difference in tread depth. 2H is the only setting for a grippy surface.
Cornering or weight in the vehicle will reduce the rolling diameter of a wheel more than wear in normal use, so when in 4H/L tread depth makes little difference (on a loose surface).Tyre rotation on the Jimny is only to do with expected tyre life.

Any 4x4 system permanent or part-time is able to cope with different wear between tyres of the same type and size. What can cause a problem is tyres of different sizes. This sounds confusing. As background we need to accept that the size marked on the side of the tyres is firstly not necessarily absolutely accurate due to manufacturing tolerance variables and secondly tyres of the same marked size from different manufacturers are again not necessarily the same size or even have the same tolerance. This is true for new manufactured tyres and the difference gets even worse when considering remanufactured products. So the problem arises when you have a brand new tyre with full tread running with one or more worn tyres from different manufacturers where the new tyre is bigger than the older ones even when they were new. The other difficulty is the available grip offered by the same pattern but with different tread depth which can cause less predictable handling. Hence best practice is to keep the wear as even as possible to maximise the predictability of the vehicle in any given condition. This is true on and off road.

on JB74's (Gen4) with the OEM TPMS, one has to be careful when rotating the tyres, so, if tyres are rotated, then the TPMS will show incorrectly the position of which tyre has an issue due to the rotation change...