Wheel spacers

[badcamelot]

Anyone use or used wheel spacers before? According to the manager at discount tire if I use a wheel spacer I am risking my life. I read online that many are sold/made yet all come with the disclaimer about RV's Station Wagon or Off Road use is prohibited. I suspect that is due to weight bearing issues, but surely wouldnt 'spirited' driving also tax hubs/axles the same?

 

[RonPorter]

Anyone use or used wheel spacers before? According to the manager at discount tire if I use a wheel spacer I am risking my life. I read online that many are sold/made yet all come with the disclaimer about RV's Station Wagon or Off Road use is prohibited. I suspect that is due to weight bearing issues, but surely wouldnt 'spirited' driving also tax hubs/axles the same?

BS.

The thin spacers can work just fine. And when I had my 911, I had the 'serious" spacers that bolted to the hubs and had separate studs for the wheels (so newer wheels could fit on an older car).

It's done all the time.

 

[Shoaz]

Like Ron said, if the spacer is thin and allows the wheel to remain hubcentric (i.e., there's enough hub left sticking out to center the wheel), then there isn't much risk. Likewise if it's a big one with it's own set of studs, if it's well engineered, and if it stays hubcentric on both interfaces, and if it's matched to wheel with the proper offset, then there isn't much risk there, either.

So, as usual, it depends.

 

[SuperchargedSHOguy]

You can wear out bearings faster but most purpose built road racing cars run spacers.

 

[K-Dawg]

If you're making up for a high-offset, you aren't going to do any damage to the wheel bearings. If anything, you'd be helping them out.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

Many with the Volvo S60s run 5mm front/10mm rear. No issues. The 10mm had a hub on them to keep the wheel hub centric.

 

[badcamelot]

Seems as though it's unanimous. I guess Im using spacers - but just likely a 3mm that will allow the wheels to remain hub centric. Now I can use that set of 225's I have.
thank you all, it's a great comfort knowing others have used and had no problems with spacers, and the scare tactics to buy new tires is just BS.

 

[rubydist]

I used 5/16" spacers on my Ranger with no problems. However, the Discount Tire guys would refuse to do any work on it.... So I had them mount tires and then put them on the truck myself.

FYI, bearing loading is changed due to net offset changes - the spacers themselves are not the problem, its the combination of wheel offset and spacer thickness compared to the stock wheel offset that matters.