Wheel spacers
 

I was thinking about some wheel spacers to kind of beef up the stance a little with my stock wheels. I see H&R has some around $100 per pair, but I found some 5mm spacers for about $10 a pair. I'm just wondering if anyone knows if these would fit with the stock bolts or would you need longer lugs? 5mm is not a big difference though either, I'd probably be better off just buying wider aftermarket wheels, but the thought of spacing them out a little seemed cool until I started adding up the cost if I had to buy longer lugs, at $3 each, it adds up fast and would be a lot of work for a few mm of traction.

04xtype04, the stock studs will handle a 5mm spacer without any issues. Going much more than that and you are starting to ask for trouble. Granted, going wider is also going to start playing hell on your front wheel bearings as now you will be starting to put too much side load on the bearing and you are going to be trying to twist the bearings sideways inside itself. Not a good thing. This is why keeping proper geometry is vital for a long life of the vehicle.

Actually that wheel bearing thing is more myth than truth, especially with such a small spacer. Now if you had like a 5 inch spacer or something that could do some damage. All you are really doing by adding a spacer is changing the offset of the wheels, so if that really did any damage then so would putting an aftermarket wheel with a different offset than stock. I'm sure there is a bit of added stress on the bearings but not anything to really be worried about. That being said, don't waste your money on them. Spend that money on something the car needs or put it away for bigger upgrades. You wont gain any traction and it wont improve handling to a noticeable point with just ten extra mm of track width.

Ok thanks I will keep that in mind. May try out the 5mm spacers since they'd only be $20. I was thinking of maybe going wider with the H&R spacers on my stock rims, maybe 20mm, instead of doing a wheel upgrade, that would beef up the look of the car some. I guess though if I'm going to spend $200 to make the stock wheels look cooler, I could just save up a little and get some aftermarket rims. Rims are tricky though, for a style that looks decent on an x-type. You have to keep it classy. I kind of want some deep dish chrome rims but not ridiculous.

Make sure the spacers you use are Hub centric- Wheel centric. I know H&R are, That is very important. Bernie

Hub centric spacers only matter if you are getting spacers that come with their own studs. The ones that are just a small plate will not need to be hub centric. But I would recommend against large spacers just from experience they never really work the way anyone planned them too (unless they are around an inch) but then again, my spacers are normally being run on lifted jeeps running 35s haha

So do you think I could run 5mm spacers on the stock bolts with no safety issues? They also make 3mm spacers but that is almost miniscule. I don't know if 5mm would even be noticable but it might fill out the wheels a tad.

Here's the thing. If you have 5mm of stud popping out the back of your wheel nuts, you can run a 5mm spacer. Basically, just make sure that stud will have contact with all of the threads on the inside of the nut attaching the wheel after the spacer is put on. If you have a ruler, just measure out your studs with your nuts on and see how much extra stud you have. Just NEVER run a spacer where the threads on your stud only go like half way through the threads on your nut. That will make you get bad torque readings, possibly strip a stud, and just generally create a huge problem.

As for size, I would go for 5mm first because they are cheap as shit and you can put them on the outside of the expensive spacers if that's the final route you end up going with.

Have you put those wheel spacers on? I am thinking about doing it as well.

I can't see how much bolt is sticking out the lug nuts because I have the stock lug nuts and they are closed-ended.I guess I can riggsome plastic test spacers about that size and see how many turns I can turn the lug nut. I would like to the get H&R set and go wide, but the $250 I would spend on those could go towards a set of new rims that are that wide anyway. I'm in no rush to get rims, but I think spacers would make the stock wheels look doper. It would be all puffed out and lowered. That might look kind of cool. I have to see what kind of clearance I have after the lowering springs. I'm thinking the front tire is going to be close... I was looking at it and I can barely see how my stock wheels are going to fit in the front an 1.3" lower. The back looks like it's going to be close as well. Pushing the wheels out with spacers may hit the fenders. I'll have to see. I'm also thinking about the wheel adapters too because they function as spacers and lug pattern adapters, so you could run something more common like a BMW rim or something. I've seen a few rims I like in the 5x108 pattern, like some of the TSW or Enkei rims, but I don't think you can find every rim you're looking for in 5x108.