The purpose of this article is to provide a guide about some simple measurements before ordering wheel spacers. This will help you save a lot of trouble,
Some information you need to notice:
- Fastening way
- Hub bore and Hub centric rings
- PCD(Pitch Circle Diameter) and wheel adapter.
- thread pitch
- Thickness
①Fastening way
This is easy to understand, you just need to check the way your vehicle holds the wheel, does it use bolts or lug nuts? This will decide whether you need the wheel spacers with studs or not.
② Hub bore and Hubcentric rings
Hub bore is a prerequisite to placing a wheel spacer on your hub, which determines the size of the wheel center. There are two types of wheel spacers distinguished by the hub bore: hub centric or non-hub centric
So here comes a question: what is hub centric?
Most stock hubs have hub-centric rings, which are the extension of the central part of the axle head that bite into the notch of the vehicle's hub, thus ensuring the hub and axle head are concentric. This means that the outer beads of the wheels are concentric with the wheel axle which creates a much better-balanced wheel and tire assembly. In other words, the design of the concentric rings not only shares the pressure of the bolts but also provides better stability. Hubcentric wheel spacers continue the excellent design.
If you are going to use hub-centric wheel spacers, the dimensions of your stock hub-centric rings and the hub bore of the wheel spacer need to be identical.
However, some customers may find the wheel spacer is obstructed by the hub-centric rings of the hubs in the process of installation. Because some models have special hubs. This situation is normally found in the installation of wheel spacers with bolts. They are thinner than normal spacers.
In summary, we recommend that: if possible, trying to ensure that the height of the hub-centric rings on the vehicle hub does not exceed the thickness of the wheel spacers.
However, some car models do not allow the use of hub-centric wheel spacers due to special design. For example, some older Toyota and Lexus models have hub locking, which does not support the installation of hub centric wheel spacer.
What’s more, when you use wheel adapters, you will find that they are normally non-hub-centric. Because they need high precision on wheel spacers. But they are equally safe as long as you have done the professional installation.
Hubcentric wheel spacers require the same bore size as the vehicle hub. As for non-hub-centric wheel spacers, what you need to do is making sure the bore of the product is larger than the diameter of your stock axle head after confirming both thread size and PCD match your stock vehicle.
③ PCD
PCD would be the most difficult part to understand without the internet. We don’t recommend you to measure it if you are not a professional mechanic. But now everything is very simple. All the parameters can be found online. You could even message us directly with the model and year of your car and we'll tell you all the parameters you want to know!
Now let’s talk about the Wheel Adapter. Many people confuse the wheel adapter and the Wheel Spacer.
It’s very easy to tell the difference between them. If you are using the original wheel, or an aftermarket wheel with the same data as the original, you will only need wheel spacers.
But if you have acquired a set of the new wheel hub, it may be a second-hand, aftermarket hub, or it is the one that you removed from another vehicle. Anyway, when you find that it won't fit your original hub, you'll need wheel adapters.
④ Thread pitch
When choosing wheel spacers, what you need to do is making sure that the wheel spacers’ thread pitch is the same as your stock wheels. You could search it online or ask us directly to find out the thread pitch of your model.
If you find that they are different, we recommend that you check if the information on your vehicle is correct or not. Please do not underestimate this parameter, even in the case of identical models, different years or even different origins may cause differences.
⑤ Thickness
How to decide the thickness of wheel spacers you need? It depends on how much space you have in the wheel well. No one would hate a small sports car with a wide-body appearance. But at least you can't let it rub against the fender.
Because our vehicles are dynamic when driving, no one can guarantee that the road surface will always be flat. Excessively rough road conditions may cause the wheels to contact the wheel brow over bumps. No one expects that.
What we need to measure is the distance from the fender vertically down to the edge of the wheel. It would be more convenient if you have a right-angle steel ruler. However, the size of the gap between the fender and the wheel is not demanding. A slight margin is enough.
The rounded edge of the wheel brow has a margin, which makes room for the shocks to move while driving. So don't worry too much about the movement of the shocks. You only need to control the clearance between the wheels and the fender.
Thick wheel spacers are often used on off-road modification:
In the case of off-road vehicles, when using larger off-road wheels, on the one hand, more consideration needs to be given to the rise of height and the trimming of the wheel brow. On the other hand, when the vehicle is lifted, a wide off-road wheel is important due to the increased height of the entire vehicle.
However, many off-road vehicles with large off-road wheels will experience a situation where the inside of the wheels rubs against the vehicle's suspension system. This is where Negative Offset wheels are needed to increase the wheel track and avoid rubbing. At this point, it is more cost-effective to buy a thicker set of wheel spacers than to have a set of custom negative offset wheels.
Similarly, if possible, you should measure the length of the original studs before choosing wheel spacers. You need to ensure that the thickness of the wheel spacer you buy is larger than the length of the original studs so that the stock studs will not be higher than the wheel and prevent you from installing the hubs.
Certainly, it is possible to polish the original studs if you pursue a perfect installation.
All of these seem complex, but actually, you could just ask us directly. Leaving the model and year of your car and the thickness you want. We will recommend you the right wheel spacer!
