Wheel Spacers

NJ wrote:

If you have the standard tires on it, you'll be pushing it relative to fender interference issues, but if you stay on the pavement and don't do anything rash, it shouldn't matter much... However, I wouldn't be using wheel spacers because it changes the front end geometry by effectively creating a negative offset wheel.

The existing wheels from the factory are either neutral (the centerline of the tread is at the mating surface of the front hub) or positive (the centerline of the tread is offset towards the inside of the vehicle). This places the load more equally (neutral) or towards the heavier inside wheel bearing (positive offset). The turning geometry is set up based on this factory setting.

Moving to a negative offset (as in reversed rim or deeper dish wheel, or adding wheel spacers to existing factory wheels) puts the centerline of the tread outside of the design area for the bearings. This tends to put extra stress on the outer bearing and the end of the spindle, and in extreme circumstances can cause increased bearing wear or damage, or even bend a spindle. In addition, because the factory geometry is upset, as you turn, more rubber is scuffed off of the tires as you turn, resulting in lower miles before you need to buy new tires. In addition, the vehicle is more likely to have handling issues, like following road seams, and so on.

With Toyota trucks, (along with lots of other cars and trucks) there is also a tendency for wheel vibration that makes it very difficult to maintain balance, which leads to even faster tire wear. Handling isn't quite what you're used to either, which in a 4WD truck at freeway speeds can be a bad combination.

When I got my 95 Tacoma 4WD ext cab V6 auto, it had aftermarket wheels with about 1 1/2 inch more negative offset (relative to stock wheels). The original tires had been replaced at some point, and the AT Radial TAs were well over half gone, and the truck had only 29k miles on it. It wouldn't run smooth for more than about a thousand miles after balancing, and the alignment checked out well within specs. Swapped tires to another brand, same size and the problem came back nearly 1000 miles later. Finally measured the wheel offset and found the problem. Bought a set of whells that were a local dealer special in the southeast US (I lived in California at the time) (they had standard factory offset) and had them shipped out. Quick swap onto the truck with balance, alignment checked (still fine, no changes made), and 80k later the tires finally wore to the point they started whining, though they still had plenty of tread to be safe. Never had to even balance them during the entire life. (After the first 10k miles, I just quit checking the balance, and I never had a vibration problem again.) The truck also seemed to handle better after putting the standard offset wheels on them too.

Now, with over 145k miles, outside of getting the replacement wheels on the truck, I'm about 20k into a new set of Michelins (went highway tread this time, as I put less than 250 miles off road in the 80k mile life of the last set) and just replaced the shocks with a new set of Bilstiens. Still running on the original wheel bearings, but have replaced break pads a few times. All in all, not bad for the mileage. Given the high wear on the AT/TA tires with the wrong offset wheel, the handling and vibration problems, I wouldn't be surprised to have replaced the front bearings long ago had I not changed the wheels back to stock offset.

Now, all of this isn't based only on the 'taco, but also on the abuse I served up to a long series of cars and pickups back in the 60's and

70's. In those days the lowered rear of the 50's had swapped ends and a higher tail seemed in vogue. It lessened traction on the rear, made burnouts a lot easier for marginal horsepower, and was the look of the day. Changed steering geometry too, and not in a good way. Add deep dish, chrome reverse wheels, or the equivalent negative offset "mag" alloy wheels and the handling only got worse, along with tire wear. At one point, tire sellers wouldn't honor mileage warranties at all for "modified" cars, because we were damn lucky to get even half of the advertised mileage from a set of tires. (Of course, the smaller ones up front and the wider ones in the back that came next only made it worse because you couldn't rotate them properly.) As wider tires really came into common and relatively inexpensive availability near the end of the 70's, the problem got even worse. To get the really wide tires in the front wheelwells, it was a careful balance of the widest wheel section possible, with an appropriate (negative) offset so the inside of the tire wouldn't rub on the upper ball joint or other suspension components and the inner fenderwells, and avoiding interference with the fender wheel opening. It took years to "wake up" and pay attention and get the cars back to level with decent anti roll (sway) bars and somewhat stiffer springs to really see some gains in cornering performance. By the way, the tire mileage and overall handling increased dramatically, despite rather "extreme" driving habits once we got the cars to corner well.

So, after all this rambling, the answer to your question is "no" and now you can understand why I'd feel that way.

Thanks

--Rick

NJ,

I bought some wheel adapters for an old Chevy truck when I was in high school (20 years ago). The Chevy had 6-lug wheels, and I wanted the 5-lug Cragar SS wheels.

Spacers and adapters are very similar. Anyway, long story short: The adapters were cheap quality, and caused my wheel to tear off while I was going down the road. Apparently, there was the slightest amount of movement between the wheel, the adapter/spacer, and the hub. That slight movement slowly grew, then went crazy and "wallered out" (don't ask me to explain that phrase) the bolt holes on the wheel.

My advice? Don't *ever* put spacers or adapters on a vehicle! You are going to take a well made, engineered piece of equipment, and throw some cheap custom piece on there. You have no way of knowing what this foreign object is going to do to your vehicle.

They are dangerous, and can cause expensive damage to your vehicle.

NJ wrote: