i always rotate my own. shouldnt affect balance at all.

You know those places that sell tires and then offer free rotations for the
life of the tire?

They charge extra for checking and adjusting balance. And it's often not
necessary. I've let my 1991 Civic's tires go through many rotations without
worrying about the balance. Instead, I wait for symptoms of an unbalanced
wheel, such as uneven tire wear, strange steering, or odd noise, before even
considering tire balancing. Also, if I hit something on the road with the
wheels, like a pothole, I might consider balancing.

One advantage of rotating tires yourself is you may pay more attention to
tire wear. Another advantage is you can have confidence the lug nuts are
torqued to spec, assuming you have a (properly calibrated) torque wrench.

On 7/12/05 7:10 PM, in article
e1b9f3c96bab8ba0de27336948e86b69@localhost.talkaboutautos.com, "FairyT"
<fairyt@aol.com> wrote:

Does not affect balance at all as long as the tires were not spin balanced
on the car.  What you might find though is a rear tire that was not properly
balanced in the first place will cause the steering wheel to start shaking
when you move it to the front.

---------------------

Rotating them dutifully will keep them wearing evenly. They will stay in
balance much longer. You can do a closer job of torqueing them by hand
than the dealer does with his air tools.

Be sure to buy a second scissor jack, and dont stand the car on it's
ear, just barely get them off the concrete.

'Curly'