Wheel Spacers

[Dylan454]

Quick question. I have read lately that wheel spacers are very bad and will snap my wheel studs. I have 8mm ones front and back that I got from autobahn lol. They just sit in between the wheel and the hub. Are these bad and should I get rid of them?

[Duncan]

Wheel spacers are not the devil, although 8mm is pretty large. The relevant question is how much wheel stud do you get to put the nut on. Since the studs are M12 you should be looking for at leas 12mm of stud in the nut

[Ben C34]

For road use they are illegal in aus.

You lose the load bearing Centre ring with slip on spacers, and potentially enough engagement on the studs to the nut. Which is bad mmkay

[Trex]

Seen some pretty gnarly crashes online from spacers snapping.

Just typed in wheel spacer fail. A gtr is the fourth pic in haha

I would never use them. Do some research and find out the offset and width you want, take into account for tyres.

[KiwiRS4T]

Wheel spacers are ok if

1. You have sufficient stud length to secure the nut (as per Duncan's formula above)

and

2. they are hub centric i.e have the correct centrebore for your car.

[Dylan454]

I was going to put 12mm on lol but I only had like 3 mm of stud left. With the 8 mm ones there is about 1cm maybe a bit more thread sticking out. I don't think they are hub centric as they could slip around. What offset are r32 GTR rims ? I have two of them that I might put on the back.

Edited March 14, 2015 by Dylan454

[hardsteppa]

Have been running wheel spacers for about a year and no issues, if u do as kiwi says- use longer studs, no ifs or buts, wouldn't even think of using them otherwise, and get hubcentric ones(gktech make cheap good ones).

[Dylan454]

Ok so I just checked how much stud is sticking out and it's only like 5 mm 0_0 I think I'm going to take them out.

[Ben C34]

I was going to put 12mm on lol but I only had like 3 mm of stud left. With the 8 mm ones there is about 1cm maybe a bit more thread sticking out. I don't think they are hub centric as they could slip around. What offset are r32 GTR rims ? I have two of them that I might put on the back.

You sure about that. Check your maths man..... A 4 mm thinner spacer would have 4 mm more thread hanging out...,.

[hardsteppa]

Either way, till u get longer studs, and aren't autobarn ones just an open spacer, not hubcentric? , take them off before you cause a 7 car fatality

[V28VX37]

Quick question. I have read lately that wheel spacers are very bad and will snap my wheel studs. I have 8mm ones front and back that I got from autobahn lol. They just sit in between the wheel and the hub. Are these bad and should I get rid of them?

Yes slip ons are bad for all the reasons mentioned above. Go get some slightly wider hub centric ones and you'll be cool, I reckon they start at around 15mm.

[Dylan454]

Maths was not functioning lol, I have taken them out now as they really were not safe .

[Chris32]

I've had 15mm Gktech hub centric bolt ons for nearly 2 years now. No issues, they are a nice bit of kit

[MozzMann]

As a retired Mechanical Engineer and Machinist I will only say this, ANYONE that uses spacer's is potentially asking for trouble, irrespective of whether the spacer has a decent ledge to re-engage with the registration land in the rim it will still place additional load on the studs that they are NOT designed to handle .

The inside of the centre hole is the same size diameter as the registration land on the hub for a reason - and the reason is the weight is taken on this land NOT the Wheel retaining Studs and Nuts.

IF you must use them then the Rim is not suited to the car it IS that simple and if your vehicle is impounded after any sort of altercation then your insurance could well be null and void as a result.

[niZmO_Man]

What about bolt on spacers?

[hardsteppa]

Mozzmann how many failures did you get to see firsthand over the years?

[XKLABA]

Slip ons are illegal

Bolt ons are a grey area and not ideal, though i used 20mm Neotech bolt on ones for a year including 6 or so trackdays without an issue

Correct offset wheels = win

[GTSBoy]

Whilst I agree that spacers of any sort are not great, I specifically disagree with the thought that the little hubcentric lip is what carries the vehicle's weight transfer to the wheel.

The hubcentric lip is to ensure that the wheel is correctly centred when you do up the wheelnuts, thus ensuring that there is any unpleasant wobble (with all the bad mechanical effects that would also come from that.

I suggest that those with the ability to do so should calculate what the frictional carrying ability of the wheel to hub face is when clamped by 4 - 5 wheel nuts done up to specified torque. Yes, the lip would be able to carry some load, and yes, it would be somewhat larger than even some engineers might expect. But it is not the biggest component in determining whether the wheel can and will slide up and down against the hub face. As a guide to how much load the lip is expected to actually carry, consider the plastic hubcentric rings sold my wheel manufacturers to allow larger bore wheels to bolt to smaller Let's just say that I would be unwilling to trust the lip with wheelnuts done up to a very minimal torque, but I trust the plastic ring to correctly centre the wheel while I do up the nuts.

The real problem with slipons is, as expressed by others above, not leaving enough thread for proper nut engagement. Assuming that someone is clever enough to think about that and then put longer studs in, then the problem can become about the studs now being loaded in shear along an excessive length and starting to work up and down, hence leading to fatigue failure.

Once you then go to bolt-ons, I suppose the problem becomes one of pushing the attachment point outwards and hence changing the way the loads are applied to the hubs and so on, like the old complaint of excessively wide wheels used by the rego crowds back in the 70s and 80s. In reality, there actually shouldn't be any difference between a bolt on and a correct offset wheel in this regard though, assuming both fit in the same space in the wheel well. Maybe the increased number of fasteners involved might increase the chance of one failing.

[Dobz]

I agree with the above. Though I would say all the load is carried by the friction from the clamp force. Maybe severe shock from hitting something like bad a bad pot hole might place load on the spigot centre, the wheel or tyre would most likely be damaged though.

Just think those plastic spigot spacers would need to be strictly outlawed if it weren't the case.

If the wheel has a means to be properly centred on the hub the biggest concern should be: Old studs (no knowledge of past treatment), damaged threads, insufficient nut engagement, insufficient or excessive bolt torque.

I've seen a couple of cases where studs have snapped whilst driving because the wheels were done up with a pneumatic rattle gun with no consideration of bolt torque. I've worryingly seen the same practice in some tyre shops too.

[MozzMann]

I have seen several failure associated with spacer's . and strangely enough it is the studs that usually break. as a result of over tightening and the actual spacer not registering properly with the hub and the rim centre, remembet the studs hold the wheel to the hub ONLY they do not and should not ever carry weight as they are not designed to do that.

Get rims that suit and fit correctly rather than use spacer's is my advice