I recently bought some wheels and spacers from a forum member here and installed them myself. One of the spacers is coming a little loose after a few miles of driving (always the same one) and I wanted to take it into a tire shop so they could check the rest of them, see if they could suggest a solution to the loose one (new nuts or something), or take them all off as obviously I don't want to risk a loose spacer.

I can do something like this myself, but with just the basic jack that came with a car and no impact gun....this 15 minute job will take me like two hours. I called three tire places and none of them will even work on my car, even if i just have them put the wheels back on without the spacers. I've offered to sign paperwork to okay it and everything. I mean I can see how it might be a liability....but really?


Anyone else have this problem?
I've read the spacer forum, but are they truly as dangerous as these tire shops are making them sound? I'm trying to do the right thing by making sure they're torqued down properly or taking them off if they arent.

 

Are they slip on spacers? What size did you get and also are you still using the factory length studs?

 

Spacers are for "off-road use only" and they should not be installed with an impact gun.

 

DIY man *** shops

 

2 hours to re-tighten your stuff? By the time you drove to the shop, had other shop do it, and drive back.. you could have done it twice... get to work!

 

Take out your man card and do it yourself

 

2 hours?!??!??!?!!??!!??!?!?!!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!??!??!?!? ?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

 

the issue is this.. spacers have to be hub and wheel centric.. its not a vibration thing.. its so the car's weight sits on the hub and not on the studs.
If you move the wheel farther away from the hub itself, then the force of leverage starts to pull on the assembly and the bearings on an angle isntead of straight up and down.. and can cause premature wear.
However.. there is no difference in this leverage is the wheel is using a spacer to get there of if the wheel was simply built w that same offset.

The danger in getting to a specific offset using a spacer VS a wheel made w the proper offset to begin with is that you now have broken the wheel centric and hub centric weight seating ( unless you biught very good spacers that have a machined sleeve that goes thru the middle fromthe hub to the wheel) and the fact that they are often made poorly w poor quality aluminum, poor quality runout characteristics, and even poorer quality studs.

This goes for any spacer, slip on or bolt on.

 

Instead of spending money to have a shop take out the spacers, just invest in a low profile jack and do it yourself. It will take maybe 30 min to do it

 

i explain all this ish on the wheel spacer thread...

-read it over and over and over aond over onave daovne r and over and ovearlefjaoedjaf

diyds....do it your dammn self..

-J

 

 

certainly you understand the liability concerns of you driving away, a wheel falling off and you blaming the company.

like the others have mentioned, you've probably already dedicated enough time to this 'issue' where you could have tightened things down yourself.

next time, buy wheels that fit without the need for spacers . I've been in this exact position before with spacers.

 

Isn't the OP female?

 

This is fairly common practice. A lot of tuner shops that have experience dealing with wheel spacers would have no problems with them, but companies like Discount Tire won't touch a car with them just based on the liability. They're just covering themselves in case something were to happen, so their customers won't sue them if something happens. At the end of the day you could sign a piece of paper that says they are relieved of all liability, but they could still get taken down in court somehow.

Investing in a low profile jack is what I would advise. They're easily accessible and will seriously make your life a lot easier. No more dealing with shops that won't touch your car with the spacers installed.

 

+1

/thread

 

To answer all the questions:

-they are hub centric ichiba v2's.
-I can easily do them myself. I installed the myself and have checked the torque myself since, but a shop will charge 20 dollars to do it for me in a matter of 15 minutes.
-yes two hours. The car was too far away from my garage to consider driving home and I only had the basic scissor lift with me. Each wheel takes me about 20 minutes to do, and since I was outside and it's 35 degrees....hands don't work as well in those conditions.
-I know there's a thread, but that's a lot of pages to read through to find this one point haha.

I just had no idea it was this serious of a liability considering I offered to sign stuff too. Thanks for the input though guys, I went ahead and retorqued them myself with some better bolts.

 

Once again guys, I really do appreciate it. The spacers do have the metal sleeve it in as well- and I'd never mess with those slip on spacers. I knew there were risks with spacers, as I HAVE read the thread, but I had no idea that shops would be so **** about it even if I were to agree to it.

 

buy a jack from sears and call it a day.

 

I got something like this:

http://www.harborfreight.com/floor-j...eel-68049.html

Just used it last night and I'm happy with it.

 

[QUOTE=bmccann101;9928790]the issue is this.. spacers have to be hub and wheel centric.. its not a vibration thing.. its so the car's weight sits on the hub and not on the studs.


Are you sure about this? Reason Im asking is because I was thinking about this when I installed my plastic hubcentric rings to make my wheel hub bore fit to my hub. I would think the cars weight would be on the studs because otherwise it would crack this plastic piece. I think the hubcentric ring is just there to make sure you line up the wheel correctly.

Edit: OP, use a torque wrench some lock tite. Torque to 80ft/lbs