Are spacers a good idea?

[Shorty Shorty]

Thinking about putting some spacers on my F15, purely for visual effect. I have 21in 599s.

Can anyone help with below questions, please.

1.How does it effect the ride and handling.
2.Would it void the warranty.
3.Do other parts needs changing adjusting, I.E suspension.
4.how does it effect tyre wear.

Any other points that would be good to know?

Big thanks

SS

[opasha]

r33 knows more, but from the little I do know and people I have talked to, spacers can be a 50/50 risk/reward item. I personally wouldn't do it because both my tire/wheel guys said it's not a good idea for safety reasons.

They will give you clearance from the fender and that visual aggressive stance, but people don't like the risk of vibration they may cause if you don't have a quality item. Defects in spacers lead to this vibration. The worse the defect, the riskier/more dangerous the outcome - I've read stories of wheels flying off - rare, but can happen.

1) I found a comment from e70 X5 thread that sums it up pretty well:
"Some would say that you should never install spacers on any axle, for safety reasons. I'm in that club.

Spacers change the loading on wheel bearings by having the incorrect offset. Expect lower wheel bearing life.

Spacers change the loading on suspension components.

Spacers introduce an additional failure mode by having a second interface at the wheel attachment point. This is because there is now a bending moment applied to the wheel bolts. Safety margins can go down by a multiple of 2 or 3 very easily, even with narrow spacers. The affects of this one point can be partially mitigated by the use of proper hub centric spacers. Using quality spacers with correct hardware helps, but doesn't completely resolve this issue.

Spacers change handling by altering the steering geometry, particularly the scrub radius.

If you want wider looking wheels, the correct approach is to buy wider wheels with the correct offset. Using spacers is just a quick fix to the looks issue, specifically, the outer tire edge location relative to the fender.

That all said, many buy them just for the looks, don't care about the safety or handling issues, and haven't had problems. That's one approach."

2) In terms of warranty, I believe it does not void it unless you go beyond 20mm - which is where problems can occur and the dealer will blame you according to someone in this thread: http://www.xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=646130. They discuss quite a bit in terms of sizing and what to avoid if you plan on getting them. Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong.

3) No parts needed, but someone mentioned this in regards to sizing: "...spacers 25mm or more first bolted to the hub. 20mm and less is bolt through."

However, anyone more knowledgeable can gladly chime in .

[Shorty Shorty]

Thanks mate

[opasha]

Originally Posted by Shorty Shorty

Thanks mate

You're very welcome, brother .

[ChipB]

While everything opasha wrote about spacers is literally true, from a practical point of view the comments about bearing load, steering geometry, and effects on the suspension are insignificant. After all, BMW offers standard tires ranging from 255 to 275 mm wide, so it seems unlikely that a 20 mm spacer would make much of a difference to the suspension. And given that you have 21-inch wheels it seems pretty clear that you are not planning on doing much off-roading with this truck. So the risk of issues arising in the suspension is nil. However, I absoultely agree with him that there are risks of vibration issues arising - it seems to be a common issue, though the horror stories I've heard are with models other than the X5. Given that not too many people are into spacers for a this vehicle, that's not a surprise. Plus you need to be careful to get the proper bolts to go with the spacers. It's your call of course, but personally I would not do it, but then again I would not have opted for 21-inch wheels either. The good news is that if you try them and have a vibration issue that can't be fixed with a simple rebalancing of the wheel & tire you can always decide to remove them.

[stewy604]

I've run spacers on many of my past vehicles without issue. There's so many variables at play here, so its hard to give a blanket "yes" or "no" type answer. On my Audi A4, since new I've been running 15mm spacers in the rear and 8mm up front. I've had no issues to date, car has 87k on it. As said above, you do need to be wary of stud / lug bolt lengths, this is a MAJOR safety concern. I know some guys have issues with vibration, mine has a slight vibration from the right front at highway speeds, but feels nothing more than a very slightly off-balanced tire. I run the spacers for two reasons; 1) stance...stepped out rear without running staggered rims/tires; 2) ability to clear my front brakes...running Porsche Cayenne S calipers on 352mm rotors. My first choice would be to run the 'proper' wheels, or something custom for my setup. I wanted to run RS4 replicas, and this was the closest offset I could make work. Ok, enough rambling...I'd say go ahead, but just be wary of how thick you go. Hope this helps.