Have decided to buy the H&R lowering springs for my '16 convertible S. Have read as much as I can...seems that 15mm spacers all around are the choice? Is dropping the car without spacers a bad look?....do the wheels look way too tucked?....anyone have any comments on a quality brand of spacer?....looking for as much feedback as I can get.don't want to do this first mod wrong!!...Cheers

 

Go for it!
The car's appearance and stance will be much improved with spacers and yes the wheels will look "tucked" if you fit lowering springs but no spacers.
I fitted 15 mm spacers all round about six years ago (with VAP lowering springs) then about two years ago I changed to 20 mm spacers on the rear. The 15 mm spacers were a huge improvement but even better with 20 mm on the rear, I reckon 15 mm front and 20 mm rear is "just right" on stock 20" F-Type wheels and tyres.
Both times I went with Teeze brand spacers, yes "cheap Chinese" from AliExpress but they are quality items at around half the cost or less than name brand spacers such as H&R and I have had zero problems with them.
See here for Jaguar fitment: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005...007687025635.2
You can order 4 x 15 mm or 2 x 15 mm and 2 x 20 mm if you want.

Edit - forgot to add - on all OEM F-Type wheels EXCEPT Blades (which I have) 15 mm spacers will not fit unless you cut/grind some 3 mm off each wheel lug.

 

I lowered my MY18 with H&R sport springs using 15mm spacers on the front and 17mm on the rear. Looks great. I am not sure whether I would have been able to tell the difference between 15 and 17 on the rears, but the overall effect makes one wonder how Jaguar could have gotten this so wrong.

 

Thank You all for your input!...

 

It's not Jaguar. Take a look at any car from any modern high production manufacturer, they all have their wheels tucked a bit. Regulations, they have to design big margins into the wheels clearance, there are things such as tire chain clearance that engineers have to design around. Make sense for a low sports car? No, but often the design constraint applies anyways.

FYI you may have to shave a bit off the studs when you use 15mm spacers with wheels that do not have relief.

 

My car sits right next to my wife's Cayenne and her fitment is correct and its just a base SUV. Without the car lowered, there shouldn't be any of the problems you described, correct?

 

Just make sure it is legal. It isnt legal where I live to have anything between the hub and the rim and more out of concern that this might lead to an insurance declinature than anything I decided not to put them on (actually I had them but the tyre place refused to install them on that basis which led me to check it, and afterward I decided against it). I ended up having to go down the more expensive route of new rims and tyres, as I couldnt abide the gap in the rear wheel arch which is more prominent with the 19's I think.

 

In my state in Australia (and most others, I believe) spacers are very illegal and are specifically listed on my insurance as automatically nullifying pretty much any claim if I want to change my track legally, I have to do it using wheel offset only

 

Honestly not sure how to compare an F-Type to an SUV but I can take some guesses:

1) I don't have a Cayenne but I do know the more gap you have between the fender and the tire, the less obvious the wheel offset inside the fender is. Just take a standard F-Type and then put H&R springs on it like i did - I never was really bothered by factory offsets until I reduced the gap between the tire and the fender. Maybe 1.5" but made a pretty big difference visually to me. Wheel offset (at that point) unchanged.

2) I can imagine the wheel envelope for a Cayenne is quite different from an F-Type. Suspension motion characteristics and factory gap between the tire and the fender are very different. Maybe that's it?

It's complex - not only involving mechanics but also legislation (when the car was designed), legal/liability, general design parameters (how conservative/safe do you want to be as a manufacturer), some cars get waivers, etc.

Anyways not trying to debate anybody here, automotive engineers have a ton of constraints - take a look at every prototype show car ever released, and then look at the final version for the public. 99% of the time it's a disappointment, and it's mostly due to engineering constraints based on law/safety/money - I personally think Jag did a damned good job with the F-Type

cheers

 

That's a beautiful XE you have, have you considered trying forged rims on it to see whether it improves handling? I've been asking my missus for years if she wants forged rims for hers but she wont let me touch the wheels D-:

 

Mine? If so, thank you 🙏🙏 I have Koya 'semi-forged' SF-11 wheels in black or maybe gunmetal grey on the wishlist, although I'm building a new house and renovating another one at the moment so there isn't enough in the car budget to do it for a little while... likely to change my mind a few times before getting around to it I think the Koyas trim a good few KG per corner and I'd expect to feel a little more nimble with them on, but this car's my cruiser and is unlikely to ever compete so I don't want to chase too many small gains. I think I'll focus on the big stuff - pulley/tune and wheels for performance, rad stereo for comfort. Couple of other little things but pretty much all my plans for this car are in my signature.

That being said you never know what the future holds, it would make an awesome track car if it was completely stripped of all the dead weight and built for the track 😂

 

Cheers, I have Koya sf 04's on the Mustang (would have gone the 11's but they are close to what I have on the F Type and I wanted something more old school). They are a really nice wheel, with decent rubber (PS4) even the Mustang handles heaps better

 

That's exactly what I did. It is obviously more apparent when you lower the car, but it is apparent just the same [without lowering it]. If the folks at Porsche and other marks can take the time to calculate what the correct position of the wheel/tire should be to give it the best look, I would think they could have done this at Jaguar, as well. After all, look at the countless things they got right. Don't get me wrong here as I absolutely love my F type but there are some things that are inexcusable, for instance, the plastic water pipes. That's totally bush league. Causing a customer to lose their engine because of such a misjudgment is beyond harsh.

 

Awesome, good to hear a report on them 😊 I plan to look into fully forged as well before buying, but I think the koya SF are reasonable for the XE.. Good middle ground where there's a decent weight saving without a Ferrari price tag 🤣

 

Eh I don't think it's so bad, man Porsche had had their issues with plastic coolant pipes too - anyways I respect your perspective, let's re-join the original topic. Happy holidays!

 

Me either, all machinery has its issues.. s**t happens. Some people just loooove to complain 🤷

 

Happy holidays to you, as well.

 

Do spacers change any of the alignment parameters (camber, caster, etc)?

 

Short, practical answer: no, just track.

Long and technically more correct answer: yes, but in miniscule amounts that don't matter unless you're an F1 team. One effect is that whenever your hub faces aren't exactly perpendicular to the ground plane (i.e. if your camber angle is not 0 degrees), moving the wheels in or out will affect ride height. Another is they may have an effect on how angles change under compression, or when the wheel is turned. They also change the amount of leverage, so the suspension will behave very slightly differently. If you moved the wheels in or out by 500mm you would see these effects, but 15 or 20mm spacers aren't doing anything worth worrying about.

EDIT: I know the amounts are tiny but I realised I don't actually know any accurate figures, so I used a triangle calculator to work out the ride height difference. With an existing camber angle of 2 degrees, adding a 15mm spacer raises the wheel's vertical position relative to the starting point (i.e. lowering the vehicle) by 0.52mm.

https://www.calculator.net/triangle-...=d&x=Calculate

If the camber angle was 1 degree the difference would be exactly half. The effects under compression or when the wheel is turned are waaaaaay harder to work out, not even going to try 😂

 

yep, spacers increase scrub radius, which could possibly affect front end grip in tighter turns as well steering feel and effort. Also could potentially affect wear on bearings. To be clear however, I run 15mm spacers on a lowered F-Type R RWD and I detect no negative effects at all. If it were a fine tuned race car under competitive track conditions... maybe? But it's definitely not that - and it makes the lowered cars look much better! Go for it