What’s the benefit of wheel spacers? Are wheel spacers actually safe? Nowadays these topics are a very popular talking point among both our customers and the entirety of the off-road community. Let’s go over some important points to ensure that if you decide to get spacers, you can be as educated as possible when buying. Wheel spacers have been widely used for decades. They are sandwiched between the vehicle hub and wheel. The wheel lugs apply a clamping force to secure the spacer and wheel to the vehicle hub. When the lug nuts are properly tightened, the lugs will stretch elastically to keep everything in the right place. Installing spacers will not change this physics. In fact, most of the failures related to wheel spacers are caused more by low quality, user error or misinformation, rather than being caused by the spacer itself. Wheel spacers are perfectly safe when using high-quality spacers and installed correctly.
Will Spacers Cause My Wheels to Fall Off?
Drive with 10+ wheel spacers manufacturing experience, having witnessed countless successful cases, we have the confidence to say that as long as the spacers you buy are reputable and made of top quality material, wheel spacers will not cause your wheels to fall off when installed correctly with care and patience. The wheel spacers must be properly torqued to manufacturer-recommended torque specs. This means making sure the spacer, wheel, and hub are secured enough to where they don’t get loosen. Untightened lug nuts (the clamping force is not enough) or overtightened lug nuts (the stud has been stretched past its tensile strength limit, so the clamping force has gone away) will cause most lug stud failures. In off-roading events, the wheels usually bear fierce impacts, thus the quality of wheel spacers is very important. BONOSS forged wheel spacers are safer and stronger than those casting alternatives: Tensile Strength≥310Mpa (AL6061-T6), Tensile Strength≥572Mpa (AL7075-T6), Yield Strength≥275Mpa (AL6061-T6), Yield Strength≥503Mpa (AL7075-T6), and the Tensile Strength of the cheap alternatives is approximately 125Mpa below. When facing bump and impact loads, higher tensile strength can bear greater forces without breaking.
Will They Cause Vibrations?
Many car owners worry about whether the wheel spacers will cause vibrations. As a matter of fact, wheel spacers in themselves don’t cause vibration, they are just increasing the track of the left and right wheels. In this way, the weight of your off-roading machine is distributed on all the wheels equally which in turn improves the comfort of car handling. The gripping power is also strengthened when the wheel track increases. The 4×4 wheel spacers could be used to correct an existing improper offset condition in wheels or clear the clearance issues of bigger brake kits. Furthermore, if you use hub-centric spacers, there is very little chance of vibration. Hub-centric spacers are designed to make a snug connection between the wheel and vehicle hub. They provide a better system of support and stability. Most of the disadvantages that people associate with wheel spacers are actually blamed on low-quality and rough design spacers. Due to the imprecise manufacturing, there is a certain gap between the hub-spacer-wheel connection. Some fierce impacts are strong enough to deform the cheap casting spacers, making the wheel no longer concentric with the hub, resulting in vibrations. Even worse, it may damage the wheel’s center bore.
