For the 2010 FWD in my signature. It's (past)time for me to rotate tires for the first time on this vehicle. I have the shop manuals, and looked up jacking and lifting. Not impressed by what little there was in the manual. A small drawing that showed:

For the front - 2 points (left and right) well behind the front wheels on the bent-up sheet metal that simulates a frame on the underside of the body, well in from the rocker panels.

For the rear - Just ahead of the rear wheels, on the rockers. The drawing isn't too clear there.

I really don't want to have to use the spare as a place holder as I swap around wheels, that's a lot of work. All my body on frame vehicles were/are easy to jack with a floor jack. And two unibody cars we have had before both had a point in the rear that you could jack the whole rear end up using just one point. One had a beam axle in back, and could jack the center of the axle, or either end if desired. The other had a true independent suspension in back, but had a special metal structure that protruded down near the spare tire underneath, made purposely to put a floor jack there. Both worked great.

And both had front subframes with a big flat reinforced spots that you could let down onto 4x4's where the lower controls arms went into the subframe.

Escape - At the back of the Escape, there is a rear suspension "frame" of welded sheet metal that both wheels tie over to, the middle of this "frame" has a big roughly square hole in it, lining up with the driveshaft tunnel that would be used for the AWD version. It looks like a differential would fit right through that hole. At the bottom of this "frame", right under that hole, is a flat area that looks like it could be used for jacking. But I don't have any documentation that says it can take the load.

So how are guys that do your own rotation doing it? Using the spare and loosening and fastening lug nuts and jacking up/down all afternoon? Tell me it ain't so...

 

I have a lift in my shop and I put the front arms on the part you called "bent sheet metal" where it makes a frame rail on the underside of the floor behind the front tire. On the rears I put them where the trailing arms bolt to the frame.

 

This is one of those jobs that I hate in these cars for the very reason that jacking them sucks. I usually grab a tire off the other Escape and use that as the placeholder rather than taking the spare out. Instead I have to take the second screw-jack out.

I have thought about cheating and just rotating front to back, back to front on the same side - that way I could just jack up one side at a time. But I change side like the book recommends.

I haven't rotated any of mine in about 10k miles or so and haven't noticed any uneven tire wear. They now have 60k and 55k miles (original conti's) and probably have about 10k left on them. I doubt I will bother rotating them this year.

 

I had mine done at the dealer and they did the same side front to back.

 

Not surprising. The guy doing the tire rotation probably never read the book where the suggested rotation pattern has the rears going to the opposite front and the fronts going straight back. At least that is how the '04-'06 are. Supposedly does tires good to reverse their direction now and then.

 

Well, it's done. It was a pain. Jas88, can I borrow your lift next time?

After looking at it more, I really didn't see good places to jack with my floor jacks, nor a place to put jack stands. So I used the spare as a place holder, and used the Escape's jack. I saw a lot of 9L part numbers during this exercise, so there must be many differences from earlier Escapes. The rear knuckle has an integral trailing arm in its casting. The rear wheel jacking point is a nub that hangs below the arm, partway between the knuckle area and the bushing of the trailing arm to the body. I found what the plastic rocker panel covers are for... so the jack handle doesn't mark up sheet metal when you crank the jack. There is very little angular play allowed on jacking the rear wheel, and still have the cross-bar part of the jack handle to turn without hitting the body every turn. I learned that the center-line of the jack has to just miss the tire.

I had looked at the owners manual online, and couldn't figure out all of this talk about a "tether". As I cranked down the spare tire winch cable, I found that there is a separate fixed-length wire cable that attaches to the body (the "tether"). The other end has a bolt and bracket that goes through two of the stud holes on the spare wheel, and is bolted to it via a special extra-long lugnut. So if the winch cable breaks some day speeding down the interstate, the separate tether cable will hang on to the tire. That was the plan. However, the tether cable has to be pretty long so you can crank enough winch cable out to pull out the spare, and stand it up against the back bumper so you can unbolt the tether from the wheel. So if the winch cable DID separate while you were speeding along, the spare wheel would bounce between the road and flailing the life out of your rear bumper, muffler, floor pan, etc. I guess that's your signal to pull over

I use a crossbar lug wrench, so I was spared using the supplied one to handle the lug nuts.

I did the specified forward-cross rotation, with the fronts moving to the rear on the same side. The fronts had more wear than the rears, usual for FWD. I just remembered that I was going to use the tread-depth gauge and measure the difference, and didn't.

I also temporarily put one of the regular wheel and tire up as the spare, to check the sizing of a true full-size spare. Fit OK, but will be more noticable from the rear, as it is a wider tire, so extends down more.

If you take your spare down to use, and don't put the road wheel back up in the storage position, the tether would drag on the ground. So the manual says:
"6. If not replacing the spare or flat tire to the underbody storage area,
raise winch up into the installed position.
7. Use the attached fastener strap (2) to tie the tether end to the
winch actuator shaft (if equipped)."

It and the picture with it make no sense. I see no "attached fastener strap" anywhere. I probably should cut a piece of 1/4" braided nylon rope and throw it in with the jack, to tie the tether up to a real nice looking hook eye that is just ahead of the winch mechanism.

So it was a real pain, but I learned how the jack works and the jacking points, better to learn in my garage than on a dark road.

The next time I need to rotate tires, I want our old Dodge minivan back. It was real easy to rotate tires on.

I can't see myself doing this again like I did. Need a new plan for next time.

 

Actually, I've glanced at pattern in my owner's manual and it shows the same thing too!

To add to the confusion, I had two of my 17" chrome-clad wheels that had corroded and possibly a third. So, when the shop foreman looked at them, it was after the move and the third one wasn't corroded yet but slightly discolored. Me and the service writer went round and round till figuring what was bad, located where now. They got ordered, came in, replaced but I'm watching the other two as this is a common problem.