Hey, so I have a '15 LX with 7500 miles on it. I bought a set of winter general altimax arctics on 14" rims from tirerack for my ski trip laden winter. I'm also intersted in getting a set of better and hopefully quieter summer tires to put on the 15" stock rims once the no season OEM firestones wear out next summer. I haven't rotated the OEM's yet either.

So my questions are:

1) If I'm going to have to get an oil change sometime after thanksgiving, should I just not rotate the OEM's until the oil change and have them put my winter tires on the car then, or should I rotate my tires like ASAP?

2) When should I get alignments and wheel balancing done? When I switch from summer to winter? Never? Annually? Only on new tires?

3) Should I keep track of which tire was where when I take the OEM's off so I can put them back on in rotated positions?

4) Should I have rotated my tires already? How often should I be rotating them?

5) How long should the OEM and the winter tires I got last?

edit 6) What summer tires would y'all recommend? Looking for good wet/dry grip and quiet, followed by things like price, longevity, etc... I'm assuming I'll probably have to move to 195/55/15? Will that fit, and will it fuck up my speedo?

I know next to nothing about tires as this is my first car that's got less than 200K miles, and on those cars I had bigger things to worry about. Also, I do know what the difference between alignment, balancing, and rotating is, I just have never done anything aside from rotating a minivan's all seasons with each oil change, so I don't know what a good tire maintenance schedule looks like.

EDIT: I also do not have a garage to work in, so rotating wheels or installing the winters on my own would require me to use the spare tire/jack, and to buy a torque wrench.

 

1) just put winters on
2)balancing when mounting tires on rims (shops will do this when installing tire on rim anyway), alignment only if you change suspension geometry ie lowering
3)usually yes
4)car will tell you when to rotate them with a maintenance code
5)research the tires and see what the manufacturer rates them for.

 

Thanks!


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Personally I never rotate the tyres.

If you have new tyres on the front and old on the rear, the car can spin under hard braking on poor road conditions.

I don't know what the tread limit is in the US (in the UK 1.6mm) but I always replace tyres once they get below 3mm. Remember, its only those little footprints of rubber that stop you falling off of the road and into the nearest tree.

 

Xtina made some excellent suggestions.

On item #3, I usually write the location that the tire came off of on the back side of the tire. I use "Whiteout" that is available from Walmart for $.97. Just write LF, RF, LR, and RR on the rubber part of the wheel / tire. The markings will stay even of the tire gets wet.

 

I would hold off on rotating them until you put them back ON the car after winter. When the tech (or person doing work) is swapping your OEMs for the winter set, have them mark where your OEM tires need to go AS IF they have been rotated. This way they will be rotated when being reinstalled after the season is over with and leaves out any guess work.

The easiest way to keep track of your rotations is to do them with each oil change. If you are one to follow your MMS (Maintenance Minder System) verbatim, then your Fit will tell usually tell you that it a tire rotation will be recommended but indicating it with a "1" in its service code.

With that said... sometimes the MMS will indicate servies at 5k miles, sometimes at 10k. It all depends on how you drive the vehicle, the drive conditions that the vehicle is in, and how many drive cycles. If you are seeing service indications around the 7.5k to 10k mark, you may want to visually inspect your tires and see if they need tire to be rotated sooner. I'll touch basis on this more in your later question from your post.

This is a bit of a catch 22. Alignments aren't really needed unless there is either an alteration/impact/repair with the car that can affect the suspension geometry and/or alignment. Yes, over time components can wear and make the alignment specs vary a bit but nothing that significant (unless of course for the reasons above). Heck, even worn or defective tires can either throw off your alignment or give you the perception that there is an alignment issue by causing the vehicle to pull.

Now with that said, I personally do my alignment annually on my Fit (which sees track time) at minimum and on my daily driven/family's vehicles either every 2/3 years, when its time for new tires, or if there is for sure an alignment related pull.

I would recommend the later three situations for you unless you do have a vehicle pull concern; at which point I would recommend having a Honda tech or specialist shop diagnosis since again pulls can either be tire related, component related, or alignment related.

Wheel balance is another catch 22 that I will answer with "do it as needed". It mostly comes down to how the car is driven, how the tire wears, and the tires mold consistency (how well the tire is made in other words). I've seen gently driven vehicles go 22 to 30k miles on a set of tires while during regular tire rotations come in for wheel balances that are only out of spec by fractions of an ounce. I've also seen vehicle's driven like they were stolen (I.E. mine ) for 7.5 to 15k miles and have tires that are noticeably out of balance.

So again, wheel balances in my honest opinion are a "do as needed" situation that have a nice mix of variables. It would not hurt to have one done in the 15k to 30k range DEPENDING on how you drive.

Yes, most definitely do just to ensure that they are being put back in their correct locations. I typically take a crayon or tire pen and right the NEED TO INSTALL AT locations on inner sidewall of the tire.

There's a lot of variables on this. Primarily on the mileage driven between rotations and how the car is driven like mentioned above. Ever 5k to 7.5k miles is usually when the MMS will prompt for an oil change and tire rotation. If those prompts do not happen in that duration, visually monitor tires for abnormal wear and rotate tires accordingly.

Really varies on the tires and (wait for it...) how the car is driven.

Personally I had gotten just over 23k miles out of my factory Dunlop SP31s with mildly spirited driving... 15k miles out of my last set of Yokohama ENVigors with pretty aggressive//spirited driving and 7 or 8k miles out of my last set of Yokohama AD08Rs which seen a LOT of autocross and some street use. On the other hand, I've seen FACTORY tires (Michelin LTX) on Ridgelines go for at least 60 to 70k miles before even getting replaced at 4/32nds tread depth.

If you are a driver that does a mix of city and highway driving, expect to see around 25 to 30k miles out of the tires of your Fit. That seems to be the going trend in my area with the Fit's I see in my area that have Firestone Affinity as their factory equipped tires.

Expect a little longer duration if you are a gentle driver or do more highway driving, expect less if you are a more spirited/aggressive driver or do more city/in town driving.

Just skimming through Tire Rack and I haven't seen ANY summer tires that are the LX's factory size, only all season and winter. Changing to 195/55R15 will open up your options yes BUT will cause your speedometer to read faster. It also may affect your TPMS system from reading properly since the system works off a wheel speed sensors (pressure sensors in wheels are now GONE) and have a set "window" that they monitor to help determine when to have the low tire light activate/deactivate. This may or may not set a system hard code that cannon be cleared by using the system reset button on the lower left corner of your dash.

No worries, we as a community are here to help. Fortunately Fits (and Honda/Acuras in general) are usually very simple to fix and maintain. As long as you take are of the simple/basic maintenance and follow the handful of actual services (I.E. spark plugs, valve adjustment, etc.) you should be fine.

Each to their own... I believe (don't hold me to it though) Honda actually recommends putting the new tires in the rear of the car.

The reason being; in wet conditions tires with the lesser tread will tend to hydroplane more due to reduced draining ability compared to a new tire of the same casting.

Again, each to their own. It's a complete "Which is safer, Understeer or Oversteer?" debate when it comes to that situation.

 

Exactly. I have see a demo with new on the front and old (but legal) on the rear, and vica-versa. New fronts resulted in a total loss of control.

Until that point I always rotated, now if the fronts wear down first, they go on the back with new tyres, and the backs go on the front. (though last time I replaced IIRC the fronts were ~2.5mm and the backs ~3mm so I changed the whole set)

 

First, thanks for the long and helpful post. Second, on replacement tires, what would the difference be between going 205/55/15 vs 195/55/15, since those two seem to be the ones to go with.