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Stancing your car for perfect fitment isn’t the easiest of jobs and most people will tell you what works and what doesn’t without actually trying it themselves. This includes Wheel Spacers. But are Wheel Spacers Bad for your car?
In this post we will go over what you can expect if you choose to go for a wheel spacer, whether they are safe or damage your car and what other alternatives you have for that perfect fitment.
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Properly Fitted
When you buy a set of wheel spacers, you need to know what size you are going to need for your car. The things you will need to know before buying any spacers include:
- PCD (pitch circle Diameter)
- Center bore
- Stud pattern
- The width of the Spacers you want
- Whether you want Hubcentric
A good properly fitted wheel spacer will just sit perfectly on the wheel with no play / wobble or other unwanted movement. For this we recommend getting a hubcentric wheel spacer.
Hubcentric Wheel Spacers sit central on your hub making them a lot safer and will reduce the risk of a serious accident because a bolt snapped. This is because with a Hubcentric spacer they distribute the weight to the hub rather than all the strain on the bolts like on a regular wheel spacer.
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Are Wheel Spacers Safe?
A properly fitted Hubcentric wheel spacer is perfectly safe. If properly secured by someone with the proper tools and knowledge, they will be safe. A good quality spacer will have been created to fit perfectly and tested to prevent any form of accident. It all comes down to installation.
If they are not properly secured, torqued to wrong settings, or not sitting right on the hub, that’s when you have serious issues that can be dangerous to yourself and other road users.
But if checked over properly, with a good quality Hubcentric Wheel spacer, torqued to the right settings and realigned ready for road use, you will be perfectly safe to drive.
Do They Damage Your Car?
A question that comes up a lot with wheel spacers is “do they damage my car?”. To be honest, they do put extra strain on the hub and can mean they need changing sooner than normal, but only minimally, it really depends on if you’re willing to pay for a new hub more often than normal.
Realistically though, the damage to the hub with an average sized spacer like 10 – 15mm shouldn’t be a problem. If however you decided to start stacking them and you had 3 or 4 Spacers on one corner, that might speed up the hubs wear and will damage your car sooner than later.
Overall though, yes hubcentric spacers can cause damage to your car, specifically the hubs. If using regular spacers you will damage your bolts and have some wheel wobble. But hubcentric aren’t going to create any serious issues unless you have some underlying issues with your hubs before installation.
Do I Need Realigning?
After any form of suspension or wheel setup, getting you alignment done is a big must. This is because everything has been altered and won’t be the same than it was before modification. Even being slightly out can cause adverse effects to your cars handling.
So we would always recommend getting your alignment done straight after any form of wheel or suspension modifications, including wheel spacers, hubcentric or not.
Some great places for wheel alignment include ATS Euromaster and Kwik Fit. Although most Wheel places in your area will offer some form of alignment. We recommend paying the extra and getting the laser wheel alignment, mainly because it’s more accurate than a manual alignment.
Wheel alignment may need to be done again after a few thousand miles if you have changed your suspension, but for wheel spacers you shouldn’t need to do it again unless you see any strange tire wear. Wheel alignment cost anything between £25 and £65 and is something we highly recommend after adding wheel spacers
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Buying A Quality Spacer
Getting a good quality spacer is key to your own safety and others. Remember that the spacer is going to be the thing holding your wheel to the car, so you need to make sure your not buying a cheap poorly made wheel spacer than it could end badly.
Some great brands include:
- H&R
- Eibach
- Hub Buddies
- ST Suspension
- Simoni Racing
All of these can be found on Demon Tweeks website along with other performance modifications. They have tonnes of parts to fit all sorts of cars and plenty of modification parts.
Are They Actually Bad?
If you were looking for a short answer throughout this post, it would be no.
Wheel spacers themselves aren’t bad, they are safe, they will wear your hubs a little quicker than normal depending on the size you get and you will require a wheel alignment when you first install them, but other than that, no they are perfectly safe if installed properly.
Although if you do want a better stance for your car and you have a bit of cash to spend, we recommend just changing your wheels to something with a wider offset, like a Rotiform or Forgiato.
If you liked this post or have anything you want to input, drop a comment below and we will get back to you. Or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest.
Happy modifying
Kevin
Kevin@boostandcamber.com
Founder of Boost And Camber
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