Damage from 2" wheel spacers?

Very BAD idea. Dangerously bad.

 

Goodbye wheel bearing lol. But seriously, it would all depend on you're driving. Whether you offroad a lot, etc.

 

I have never seen a smoked wheel bearing due to spacers. If that were the case, everyone with neg wheels would be stuck on the side of the road. Do you perhaps have some sort of credible science to back that up? Because the consensus was that ZERO exist due to the fact that the increased wear is so minimal it can’t be measured.

we get these threads from time to time and have to debunk them once a new crowd of people show up. Full time job between this and wheel sizes.


No sugar analogy’s please. It’s fuckin nonsense.

 

Most all wheel bearing manufacturers have a calculator to determine life expectancy.
There is a reason load offset is used in all of them.
But like any wear part, use and/or maintenance will be the more determinant factor.

 

Sure sure. But what is the bottom line on bearing wear for these bearings with a 1.5 spacer, for a daily driven 40 miles a day minimal off road (or insert any other scenario)?


I’m not doing the math. Because it’s so minimal. Even if it wasn’t, we’re talking a bearing replacement. So what.

 

I wouldn't put any spacers on my truck. I would work with offset 'rims' and keep it reasonablyle. But some folks just have different needs and wants. If you're going to do it - Just go to the dark side. Heck, why stop at 2 inch spacers - Go ahead and put 4 inch spacers on. It will look cool and probably add about 80 horsepower.

 

If someone can offer up some actual data showing any sort of significant risk, that would be very helpful.

 

This.
If there is anyone out there, ANYONE who can hear this, please, we need help. We need non anecdotal evidence showing actual figures and proof of the bearing wear adding 1.5” causes. We know that it causes wear. But we need to know HOW MUCH.

I’ll check back in after my casserole has re heated.

 

Buy 8 spidertrax spacers and stack them 2 per wheel, that's the optimal stance.

 

There are really three issues at play when using bolt-on wheel spacers (excluding any potential suspension/steering geometry issues): strength of the studs and spacer, maintaining torque on the hidden nuts, and loss of bearing life expectancy.

The strength of the spacer itself is rarely an issue for most bolt-on wheel spacers. The factor of safety is probably greater than 5-6 when using 6061 aluminum on a spacer much thinner than is being discussed here, so it's really a non-issue. The strength of the studs is also not typically an issue provided they are torqued properly.

The second issue is generally where you will see sudden failures with wheel spacers. If the nuts aren't torqued properly and are getting loose, you cannot see it. Without the correct clamping load, things break and you can't see it happening. This is when wheels fall off.

The third issue is one of a long-term "failure". When selecting a bearing for an application, there are a number of parameters that are used to calculate the dynamic load being placed on that bearing. One of those parameters is bearing life expectancy. Now if you continue to use the same bearing but have increased the load, life expectancy will be reduced, there's no way around it. I think most people get that, so then the question becomes how much does a wheel spacer increase the load, and how much does that increased load reduce life expectancy. This issue is the same with wheel spacers and with wheels of different offsets, it makes no difference.

If your bearing was going to last 150,000 miles and now it will last 140,000 miles I think most people would probably be fine with that. It's not a major reduction. If you have to replace bearings every 4 months, that's probably going to be a problem for most people.

So how much additional load is there? The front wheels typically see the highest forces, so I'll look at them, and since it's just about the difference, I will just look at the maximum static load of the vehicle's weight.

The wheel bearings on the Tacoma are approximately 30mm apart. The wheel mounting surface is 38mm from the outer bearing. The stock wheels have a +30mm offset, this means that the wheel centreline is 8mm outboard from the centre of the outer wheel bearing.

Obviously the first two values won't change with a wheel spacer, what will change is that last combined value (8mm).

Once you run through the static load calculations, you find that the load on the inner bearing is (8+x)/30*W and the load on the outer bearing is (38+x)/30*W, where x is the thickness of wheel spacer and W is the weight of the vehicle supported by that wheel.

You can see that for a stock setup (x=0), the inner bearing sees a load equal to 27% of the weight and the outer bearing sees a load equal to 127% of the weight.

With a 2" spacer (x=50.8), the inner bearing sees a load equal to 196% of the weight and the outer bearing sees a load equal to 296% of the weight.

The inner bearing is seeing 7.3x the load it normally would, and the outer bearing is seeing 2.3x the load it normally would.

Doing the actual bearing life calculation is a bit more complex and would require a more in depth analysis, but suffice it to say, this will have a non-negligible effect on bearing lifespan. No question.

I don't consider bolt-on spacers to necessarily be unsafe, I've run them and will probably do it again, but just know what you're getting into. Plenty of people run wider stance (with spacers or different offset on their wheels). Lower bearing life is not usually a safety issue, just a maintenance one. Double/triple check the torque on the spacer nuts and monitor bearing wear and you should be good to go.

Jeff

 

DAYUM Jeff! Nice writeup. Have some extra time on your hands working from home these days?

 

This guy says Go For It!!!! Gotta get dat Poke!

 

wonder if the wheel studs fail on these things any more frequently than the OEM wheel studs. it's usually due to people over or under torquing the lug nuts. i see it being more user error than anything else, but what do i know

 

To break all six.... smells like user error to me.

 

Using your calcs/percentages...
Let's assume for simplicity sake, a 50/50 weight split front to rear @ 5,600 GVWR.
That's 1,400 lbs at each wheel.
With 2" spacers, that's 2,744 lbs at the inner bearing and 4,144 lbs at the outer.

Bearing life is proportional to the load cubed.
1,400*3/2,744*3=.13=13%
1,400*3/4,144*3=.039=3.9%

I've never seen static load to determine bearing load.
I've always seen it calculated as it takes on radial and axial loading from road reaction.

 

Solid info and data.

On the less solid side, a person much smarter than me would relate that 1/5th more load would equal 1/2 the life. Also that 1/2 more load would equal 1/5th the life.

In the many years since first hearing that, I cannot prove it wrong?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, fellas, but if you go 2" spacer or get the same with wheel offset, isn't the "damage and stress" the same? I avoid em at all costs, just me personally, no real reason other than having to deal with another part... but i know people who run spidertrax / G2 1.75's and i've never heard any complaints or gripes about wheels coming off or having to change out bearings every week

 

You’re right. It’s the same thing, same stresses.

 

In general, you would not increase the bearing load in most cases. But, you would be dealing with a really wide tire. So, loading toward the sidewalls will load the bearing more. Still, that would be a better case for the bearing and the spacers.

In the end, a failing bearing usually gives some warning. A failure at a connection (like the pic above) should not be allowed.

 

Correct; affects it the same.