Truck wheel spacers become more and more popular by the day for various reasons. When done properly they provide a distinct look that brings the appearance of your truck to a whole new level. Simply speaking, they are components that attach to your truck’s wheel studs, the wheel is installed on the spacers, so the tires sit farther out from your vehicle hub. By creating this additional space, they help improve the stability, greatly enhance the corner performance, prevent your wheels and tires from rubbing against wheel well liners, shock absorbers, brakes, or other suspension components. Besides, as the track is widened, the visual effect is better. You can safely put spacers on the front or rear axles, but your choice will be down to the model of truck you have and the size of the wheels you’re using.
Why Do You Need Truck Wheel Spacers?
- Most OEM wheels look obviously “retracted” in the wheel arches. With various thickness wheel spacers, you are able to control how far out your wheels can be. They can also improve the look of your truck by moving the wheels out to be flush with the fender wells.
- Wheel spacers will increase your truck’s track width, the wider the track, the lower the amount of weight transfer. This means more grip, the resistance to rollover enhances, your truck becomes more stable and the comfort level of handling improves a lot. This is effective when you are driving in bad weather or when cornering.
- Using spacers on truck allows you to install larger wheels and tires. Keeping the backspacing correct allows enough room for the suspension, brake, and steering systems to operate without interference from the wheels. By pushing out the wheel, you can also gain the ideal amount of clearance for a bigger brake instead of rubbing against it when mounting back the wheel.
- In addition, conversion wheel spacers (also called wheel adapters) can change the bolt pattern and center bore to allow you to mount wheels that are not made for your car. If you intend to convert PCD/CB for fitting the wheels, then wheel adapters will be your instant and effective solution. Done properly, your modifications will be beneficial.
What Kind of Truck Wheel Spacers Do You Need?
There are two main types of truck wheel spacers that exist on the market: hub-centric and lug-centric. Hub-centric wheel spacers are designed with a hub-centric lip which is piloted by the center bore of the vehicle hub. This means they are designed to make a snug connection between the wheel and vehicle hub, ensuring the hub carries the weight of the car instead of the lugs. Besides, they are CNC machining, precision at 0.02mm, which make the hub-centric lip more accurate, perfect fit the wheel hub and provides a smoother installing experience than those roughly designed spacers. Lug-centric spacers would mean they are centered only by the lug nuts. Most trucks would need hub-centric wheel spacers to create a strong hub-spacer-wheel connection, which effectively reduces vibration. Spacers have existed around for multiple decades in the off-roading trucks community, and as long as they are high-quality and installed correctly, they are totally safe to use. After installing your spacers, it is always a good idea to double-check whether all lug nuts are tightened to the manufacturer’s specification with a properly calibrated torque wrench.
