Front wheel drive calls for moving the fronts to the back and crossing the rears to the front.
Rear wheel drive is the opposite.

Why? It seems the same thing is being done. Help me understand.

 

Take a look at the Tire Rack site on tire rotation: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=43
All that goes out the window if you have "directional" tires.

 

Yeh, I seen all that. What makes me curious and the fact I cannot find an explanation of is, whats the difference. In FWD and RWD you take two tires and move them together to the back and cross the ones that came off.

I don't see the significance of why FWD has to be different than RWD, they are being rotated.

 

It isn't different. You take the drive tires and move them either fronm or back, and then you cross the others. The above link shows it pretty clearly.

 

I'm wondering what the problem is with a FWD in crossing the drive tires to the back and bringing the rear tires forward.

Sorry for the stubbornness, but I just want to know the engineers reasoning.

 

What are you talking about? You literally are making a mountain out of a mole hill here. It is no different, you take the drive tires (the ones driving the vehicle) and move them to where they arent being driven by the car (the ones that dont drive the vehicle) I don't get what there isn't to understand here? Its actually a pretty simple thing.

 

Appears they want the "drive tires" from the opposite corner during rotation. That's a better rotation than the non drive tires get, but then again most wear is on the drive tires so they should get some special consideration. Each rotation then keeps the tires moving around real good that way. It takes 4 rotations for a tire to be back where it started from.

If one did an X rotation, then at the next rotation the tires would be at the spots where they were the time before.

The criss cross is on the drive tires so they get the benefit of a bigger switch over. Non drive tires tend to go along for the ride.

Nothing is cast in stone though, and tires can be rotated based on wear characteristics. If a rear tire has been running low on air for awhile, it may show more wear than the other tires. Doesn't make sense to move it to the front as that won't balance the wear out.

Okay, the answer to your question may be this:

 

Heh, Thanks. Mole hill eh. Not me, that's all you.

I have FWD and this tire pressure monitoring system that has an easy sensor location mode that will move them in the same manner as a RWD rotation with a single press of a button.
If I rotate them in the suggested FWD manner I have to reprogram all the sensors individually.

So....... I wonder.......... If I rotate my FWD tires like the RWD illustration, what is that screwing up? Not much it looks like.