To buy or not to buy wheel spacers and why

1.25 spacers here...no issues in 20k miles

 

I was told that the 1.25" would work, so that is what I ordered. I should have it up and running Sunday.

 

Why do you want them to stick out? Don't you want your paint and bearings to last?...been there

 

I ran 1" Bora spacers for 3 years, and well over 100,000 miles. Truck now has 172K on it. ALL the time I've owned it, I've had tires that almost double the weight of "stock", and much larger diameter to boot. Same original wheel bearings. Still in excellent shape. Most people seem to have a hard time believing the mileage I get from my Cooper STT PRO's. So no "abnormal wear" indicated... I bought new rims and got 1" less backset. May experiment and put the spacers back on just to see how they look. Zero risk if installed correctly.

The theory that spacers kill wheel bearings assumes that the bearings are not engineered with a safety factor...ie....just BARELY enough to roll the truck off the assembly line. They are obviously engineered with a safety factor that allows more offset, bigger tires, etc....

In the last 4 years, the truck was a guest at 3 different tire shops (2 times for tires, once for new wheels) and the dealer did an alignment for me. NONE of them balked at working on the truck because of spacers. More "facts" on spacers are simple old wives tales than anything except synthetic vs dino oil...

 

My 18 OR had Spidertrax spacers on it within 500 miles, dealer has no problem with them. Been to 3 scheduled maintenance appointments so far with zero issues. The only thing they will do is throw sh*t over the side of the truck when turning, like muddy water, snow, etc.

 

Better to support local shops anyways.

 

awesome ,, send pics of the set up ,, love to see it

 

Just confirming the same. I've had a set of 3/4" on mine for 4+ years now. I actually had Discount put mine on, as I was putting new tires on at the time. They had zero problems putting them on, and I've been through countless balances and rotations and even another set of tires with no issues and/or comments from them. I also am seeing no signs of any premature bearing wear, or any signs of wear.

 

I dont know that I agree, I think when you change the geometry in any way, I think you should get alignment. Just my thoughts.

 

Spacers have no effect on alignment whatsoever.

 

I’m not disagreeing with you whatsoever. But I do think if you change the geometry you might want to have it done. I am changing shocks and adding spacers, so I definitely have mine done. I am an alignment junky though, do mine probably too often whenever I feel something.

 

So if I have a 2WD I shouldn’t get spacers? I just want to be sure

 

The only problem with spacers is that you're doubling your potential fail points In a place that a failure could be catastrophic. Whether its under torquing or over torquing (much more dangerous, can fail without visual warning) its twice as many nuts for someone to make a mistake.

Mistakes happen. A lot. Wheel offs are not an uncommon thing.

 

I’m of the mindset that if you want a wider stance then you get a wheel offset that tickles your fancy. Spacers are spacers either behind a wheel or above a strut. Either way is not optimal.

 

Good looking taco! What size spacers and what headlights you have?

 

No spacers here. Headlights retrofitted with rx350 by @kustom54lighting.

 

+1” BORA on stock OR rims KO2 265/75-16
.

 

FWIW, when I got my wheels put on at America's Tire, they would not work on the truck if it those shitty spacers, but had no problems with a bolt-on spacer. I have the SpiderTrax 1.25" and they had no problems at all working on my truck

 

Nice setup, are you running any lift?

 

The truck picture is all OEM suspension. Slight taller tire with +1” spacers gives it a nice stance.