Hey guys, ive been looking at my car lately and ive noticed that the x types have somewhat of fender flares but the wheel does not look like it fills in those flares. Ive heard some stuff about how wheel spacers are bad for your car, but how would 5mm or more do for my car? do wheel spacers mess anything up or is it just a bad opinion i heard?

any help would be appreciated

 

I've had spacers on every car I've owned since 1995. Inexperienced tire shops will claim all are bad, but if you stick with either German (H&R, FK) or reputable American (Motorsport Technologies - hubcentric to hub and wheel if >10mm width), then you have nothing to worry about. The German ones are even TUeV approved to pass annual inspections and intended for use on roadways without speed limits (the standards of roadworthness there are much, much higher than in the US).

The problem with our cars and spacers is that we have studs as opposed to wheel bolts. For anything narrower than a 20mm spacer, you need to fit extended studs. Not too big of a deal, but it means you'd need to swap them to OEM-length studs if you want to sell the car without spacers later or can't run them for winter wheels, etc. I prefer the idea of wheel bolts for flexibility, but studs are a joy for changing wheels quickly - compared to bolts.

 

Jaggyx, I am going to give the opposite side to what Pat stated above but at the same time agree with him slightly.

As he said, wheel spacers generally come in 2 flavors, 5MM (1/4") and 20+mm variations. The 5mm ones are not that bad on your car. The big thing you need to watch for is after installing the spacer, you still have some thread showing on the outside of the lugnut. In the case of our Jags where they have an acorn top (ie, enclosed top), you need to make sure that you get atleast the diameter of the stud worth of thread engagement on the nut. You get less than that and you are affecting the structural integrity of the stud/nut combo and this can result in loss of the wheel following a large G-force shock (ie, hitting a pot hole, high speed turn, etc). As you can imagine, this is bad.

Now, for the 20+MM spacers, I feel these are a bad idea unless you alter the backspacing of the wheel at the same time as when you install the spacers, you are offsetting the center of the wheel (side to side) with the center of the bearing. When this occurs, you are putting additional stress on the wheel hub since the wheel is no longer working in a purely vertical fashion. This side to side twisting of the hub is going to result in increased wear of the hub unless something is done with the backspacing of the wheel to get the center of the wheel back in line with the center of the hub bearing. Obviously, the more difference between the center of the wheel and the center of the hub, the quicker the wear is going to show up. Am I saying that your hubs are going to fail in 20K miles. NO!!!!! Sooner, YES. The increase in failure time is a function of many different things.

Please keep in mind that the stock rims where chosen to push the wheel out as far as possible without causing any rubbing issues. As some of us have found out, going above the factory 225MM width can lead to rubbing issues without other modifications. By adding a spacer, you are potentially pushing the wheel to a position where it is going to cause rubbing. Adding only a 5mm spacer, you will probably be just fine. Adding say a 20MM spacer and I can garantee that you will have rubbing issues unless you play around a low with the backspacing of new rims.

 

Now you've hit a pet peeve of mine. Have you ever experimented with this personally? 0 offset would place the hub in the center of the wheel mind you, so basically you are claiming that all cars with FWD offsets kill bearings from the factory with the added centrifugal force that would come with moving the mounting point of the wheel away from the center. RWD offsets approaching ET0 would produce a more balanced load on bearings then. Funny how it doesn't really matter if the offset is FWD or RWD to the engineer designing the hub and accounting for bearing loads... hmmm

I can say after logging somewhere around 200,000 miles on cars with spacers >20mm, here are the issues I've had - without speculating or talking out of my a$$...

40mm spacers on the rear and 30mm on the front axle of my C70 for 80k miles with ZERO bearing issues. My Golf with 60k miles and 25mm all around and my Volvo 850 wagon with 70k and 25mm front and 30mm rear. I've actually never had to replace a wheel bearing on any of these cars. There is photo evidence of each car here: http://www.cardomain.com/id/shanghaid

I won't hold it against you, as this is a common wive's tale and general misnomer. If you do find evidence of bearing damage with wheels approaching 0 offset, show me. Now I might start to believe you on reverse offset wheels where it is essentially the opposite of a FWD wheel and 3/4 of the wheel width is in front of the bearing, but I doubt there is even evidence of this, as it is basically the same as an FWD wheel turned around. Point is, if you are guessing about the impacts on bearing load without proof, you should have some hand-ons experience before postulating.

 

exexpat, 0 offset and center of the bearing are two different measured points in the car. Offset is simply the measure of the distance between the back side of the mounting surface of the rim (where the lugs go through) and the center of the rim (side to side). The center of the bearing is just that, some point on the spindle where the center of the bearing is located.

So, it is possible to have wheels with a very high offset and still keep the center of the wheel in line with the center of the bearing. Thing go awry when you start getting the center of the wheel away from the center of the center of the bearing.

As for using spacers, I have in the past, but normally only thin ones. My bigger experience has come with 4x4 trucks and going with much wider wheels and getting the difference between the rim center and the bearing center. The law of the lever is the same in both cases. It is just a matter of what is causing the spacing difference. In the case of the trucks, it is more rim width using a constant backspacing (ie, getting a more negative offset). Some other experience has come in the way of helping friends repair their cars after they put RWD rims on a FWD car (for that tire sticking out look).

Looking at your cars, you have purchased rims that ended up pushing the face/center of the rims out to the outer edge of the rim to give that flat face look. This results in a high positive offset. By adding the spacer back in, you have essentially pushed the offset back to more of a factory position. But, there are people out there that are going to use their factory rims and think that they can add spacers and be just fine. That is not quite the case. Sure the car will drive, but at the cost of additional wear to certain components. Granted, as I am sure you have found out, simply adding a spacer to the factory rims has also causes significant rubbing issues without other modifications.

I think we are talking a lot of the same things, we are simply using slightly different ways of saying it. I agree with how you have things set up that you will not get any significant change in bearing wear. The "but" part of that statement is you also need to alter the wheels that you are running.

What do you have going on in August? I am going to be out in Bremerton for my new grandkid. Would you be interested in possibly meeting up? Just asking. I am always trying to meet up with people on the forums to put a face with the name.

 

Factory wheels for the X-Type have a 40-50mm offset, so that would mean that up to a 50mm spacer is ok then on the bearings and would get the wheel to ET0. You've answered just argued against yourself above.

Sure, by changing the position of the wheel, you are making it come closer to the fender lips, but that is the point. The stanced, hellaflush, and rimtuck sites are dedicated to this look. We should try posting something about the negative bearing impacts of spacing and low offsets there... it would be fun

I've been doing this for a long time and am a moderator on 4 car forums, you can inquire about my wheel and offset chops at any major Volvo or VW site.

I should be here in August. I'm hoping to get a speaking engagement at Microsoft TechEd South Africa in August, but that is the only thing I have planned as of now. Would be happy to meet up - Bremeron isn't too far - and ther is even a song about moving there

 

exexpat, I don't think I have done that at all. Using your logic, you are saying that the wheel bearing is sitting where the lugs are, at the outside edge of the hub? If this were true, then you would see the roller bearings when you removed the wheel. This is not the case with our X-Types. The bearings (as measured from the center) actually sit back about 1.6" (or 40 mm) By using factory rims with an offset of 40mm, that would then place the center of the center of the bearing in line with the center of the wheel when looked at in an up and down direction. Getting these two imaginary lines away from each other is going to cause side to side stress when the wheel is moved in a purely up and down direction. PUtting a side load on the tire/rim is only going to be magnified as this distance difference increases.

 

I love when people start arguing about wheel offsets and spacers.........

I drove with 20mm/25mm spacers, stretched tires and extended wheel studs for 40k miles and never had a single issue... That includes track days, drifting, and driving the car like it was stolen most of the time (my old S13).

 

Exactly. wheel bearings are not inset exactly equal to offset. Then how do you justify a RWD car with a factory 10 or 15mm offset. The only imaginary thing going on here is the imagination that spacing will cause issues, without actually having tested it. I've tested it, Allen's tested it and we can call BS on your speculation, because we speak from experience.

Go buy some 20mm spacers, roll your fenders so that tires will clear and come talk to us in a year with your findings.

 

exexpat, the bearing used on FWD cars are what are known as radial bearings. They are meant only to be loaded in line with the bearing. If you ever look at the inside of one of those bearing, you will notice that the rollers lay in a nice circle with the insides and outsides running in the same diameter circle. Where on the front end of a RWD car, they use a bearing with an angled set of rollers. This provides for some radial and lateral force loading on the bearing without causing damage. If you look at the angle of these bearings, you will find out that the angle of the rolling surface matches up to the angular misalignment between the center of the rim and the center of the bearing. When it comes to the rear axle of a RWD vehicle, because the wheel is effectively sitting on the end of a long pole, the bearing doesn't need to be in line as the axle is acting as a stabilizer and any lateral load is transfer directly to the carrier where other bearings take up the load and the outer bearings only needs to handle the radial loading.

 

You're still speaking in theory. Show me practice.

You say that >20mm will damage things in <20k miles. I would argue that the Technische Ueberwachungsvereine in Germany would have engineers that could out-argue both of us and explain why they permit sellers to sell these items and approve them for German roads.

Again, 200,000+ miles of hands-on experience (me) versus speculation (you). Show me evidence, case studies, law suits, anything but theory.

 

Yeah... Radial bearings, radial loading, blah blah blah I've still never had issues with low offset wheels or spacers and I've done a lot of hard driving on both. Until my wheel snaps off because my bearings or whatever couldnt handle the load, I'll jump on the "spacers are bad" wagon.

 

you had an s13? those are some sick cars. one of my all time favorite cars is the s15.

and guys guys i didnt mean to cause an arguement, but thank you for the help. i didnt know wheel spacers were such a controversial topic lol

 

It only really happens in the forums of cars without much of an aftermarket following. Because Jaguar (and Volvo) is in the infancy phase of modification, there aren't many people educated about wheels, spacing, offsets, tire stretch, and so on. People will bring their American muscle car influence in and what their dad's taught them, and that isn't always applicable to the European car scene. In a more maturely-followed car marque forum like those of BMW, Audi, Mercedes Benz, Porsche, VW, Nissan, Lexus, Toyota and Honda - we wouldn't be arguing.

Low and positive offset wheels must be really hard on bearings, too. That may be why Ferrari has changed their wheel design for the 2010 season. The old one would have blown up bearings within a lap or two:

 

I have been watching the debate with interest, but will throw my oar in.

The offset is decided upon by the engineers during a car's development to suit the geometry of the suspension. The size of offset doesn't determine the loading as long as it is the same as orginally intended ie. an offset ET 15 doesn't mean there is a greater load on the wheel bearing than ET 45 or ET -15.

All engineers design with a factor of safety to take into account production tolerances, abuse, corrosion etc. If the wheel offset is changed then a greater loading will result on the wheel bearing, but may simply eat into the FOS so damage may still not be evident during the cars lifetime.

The original Mini was reknowned for eating wheel bearings when spacers were fitted, but technology has moved on considerably since then.

The other thing to bear in mind is that adding a spacer will change the centre of rotation from that intended and will increase tyre wear, even if slight.

Lastly adding spacers could invalidate your insurance if not declared.

As I'm now a 'mature' (my wife wouldn't agree) driver I'll leave the spacers to the younger members. I'll take the Westfield for a blast when I feel the need.

PS Ferrari changed their wheels for 2010 as wheel covers are banned for this season and the tyres (and wheels?) have been reduced in width. They have been a bit sneaky however and incorporated a semi wheel cover into the design of the wheel itself to aid airflow to the brakes.

 

Good answer. Thank you.

 

Not in America.

 

The only inspections we have in WA are emissions every other year. We can perform about any modification or drive complete rusted-out/non-roadworthy cars and our police normally doesn't care (with some exceptions).

 

With regard to the possible insurance issue I didn't mean adding spacers would be illegal (unless the wheel projects beyond the wheel arch - UK) or fail our annual test (MOT). What I meant was by modifing the vehicle and not declaring it, in the UK anyway allows the insurer to walk away from any claims. Don't know how this would stand in NA, but say someone adds spacers, but doesn't use extended studs/bolts and a wheel comes off as a result, causing injury. Would your insurer still cover you?

 

It would probably be a case-by-case thing, SEMA has been pretty successful at lobbying manufacturers and insurance companies in the name of aftermarket parts. I know that if you do not save receipts or have your car appraised and total your car in an accident, insurance doesn't necessarily reimburse for the modifications.