Wheel Spacers

A set of aftermarket wheels can significantly enhance the look of your vehicle, improve its performance and handling. However, it often happens that the new wheels you have been craving for several months do not fit properly due to a lack of brake or wheel well clearance. If so, suitable wheel spacers can do the trick by pushing your wheels outwards a bit to give you the extra clearance you need. Simply put, they will increase the distance between your wheel hub assemblies and the wheels to prevent your rims and tires from contacting the brake calipers and/or wheel wells.

Wheel spacers suitable to your application may vary in size from one to dozens of millimeters depending on the wheels you’re going to install and the offset you want to get. When choosing spacers with a significant thickness, pay special attention to the material they are made from since its durability is crucial for safe and reliable performance. Most likely you’ll have three options to go, including high-grade steel, aluminum alloys and T6 aluminum. All of them are highly resistant to rust and corrosion, however, T6 aluminum is considered to be the best option, since it is very durable yet lightweight.

There are two basic types of wheel spacers, including hub centric and lug centric ones. Wheel spacers of the first type are mounted without any gap between the hub and the center wheel lug. This type of installation allows the hub to support almost all the weight of the wheel which makes it easier to balance it to ensure a smooth and quiet ride. By contrast, lug centric spacers leave a small gap between the hub and wheel lug when mounted which means the weight of the wheel is mostly supported by the lug rather than the hub. Going with lug centric spacers can make it harder to balance your wheels, whereas, this type of spacers is the most universal one, so you will be able to accommodate just about any suitable aftermarket rims found on the market.