Wheel spacers are used to widen the track of cars, trucks, and SUVs. They are also widely used to fix backspacing and clearance issues. Properly spacing out your wheels makes sure that your tires fit in the wheel arches safely. Improperly spaced wheels can rub against your brake calipers, your shocks, or even your fenders, causing potential damage or even a crash. 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 are completely safe when installed correctly with care and patience. Anyway, a few things may help you improve the safety of wheel spacers:
Proper Wheel Spacers Installation is Important
Proper installation is paramount to ensuring the safety of your vehicle. Typically, it is not recommended that you try installing them on your own if you are not a professional or under the guidance of a Qualified Mechanic. In case of that, we include installation instructions that enable the most novice of mechanics or DIYers to safely install their wheel spacers (strongly recommend under the guidance of professionals). The wheel spacers need to be properly torqued to manufacturer-recommended torque specs. This means making sure the spacer, wheel, and hub assembly are secured enough to where they don’t get loosened. Untightened lug bolts/nuts (the clamping force is not enough) or overtightened lug bolts/nuts (the stud has been stretched past its tensile strength limit, so the clamping force has gone away) will cause most lugs failures. Find a suitable balance in the level of tightness and the stud will remain strong, providing the greatest possible force to keep the wheel attached to the hub.
Don’t Hesitate to Use High-quality Spacers
Quality means everything in wheel spacers. While you may consider that a simple and cheap wheel spacer is “just enough to use”, the fact is, lower quality means lower safety. Never skimp on price and end up with unsafe low-quality spacers. The quality is always a huge deal when it comes to the components you add to your car. In the market, wheel spacers made from aircraft-grade (or higher) aluminum are the basis of quality spacers. When you find a reputable store, you’ll find that they use 6061-T6 or 7075-T6 billet aluminum as the material of spacers. This ensures strength, service range, and safety as well as high resistance to corrosion. If the store you’re buying from can’t confidently say that it uses aircraft-grade 6061-T6 or 7075-T6 billet aluminum, you should probably find the nearest exit. Although many stores claim that they are selling 6061-T6 aluminum spacers, they are not made by the forged process. In fact, they are cheap casting spacers. Forging, at any time, provides higher performance spacers than casting. It further enhances the hardness and toughness of the spacers. With the same material and cost, the strength and safety of forged spacers are far higher than casting ones.
In Summary
Most of the disadvantages that people associate with wheel spacers are actually blamed on the low-quality spacers and improper installation. Those low-quality casting spacers are not strong enough and will be deformed and destroyed under intense impacts, leading to disasters. And improper installation, for example, untightened or overtightened lug nuts will also increase the chances of accidents. So, are wheel spacers safe for daily driving? — as long as you take the appropriate safety precautions, they are totally safe. Avoid buying cheap spacers because you may ultimately pay much more for them. It is always a great idea to regularly inspect and give the spacers another check after 100 miles of driving to make sure they’re still in place well and the lug nuts are tight. Authentic stores that are able to customize to your needs can provide products made with genuine quality and help you avoid deception by unscrupulous merchants.
