Wheel spacer controversy???

Yes, stress. The further the weight is off of the hub, the more stress there is on a wheel bearing. Plain and simple. Be it less backspacing, or wheel spacers. It’s quite simple

 

Yeah, that's going to be a no for me. Proven in practicality.

 

I’m not saying that you’re going to explode your wheel bearings from putting spacers on. In fact I ran spacers for a while. My point is that simple physics can show you that there is more stress on the wheel bearing from the weight being further out. Here is a nice example:think of the bolt as your wheel bearing, and the force arrow as your wheel. It’s like using a breaker bar vs a wrench. The same force, with a longer moment arm, has more torque.

 

I have seen firsthand the result of a decent front end collision on a 2nd gen that broke balljoints and cvs and the spacers were still intact. I can attribute my personal wheel bearing failures to water crossings and mud.

 

My buddy just had a wheel fall off his Jeep going about 65 on the highway. He had chinese spacers, cheap chinese aftermarket lug nuts (probably aluminum because he wanted pretty red ones), and it's lifted. He immediately blamed the spacers. I also have chinese spacers, although different brand. Purchased them on Amazon. I was a little skeptical of it being the spacers, because his are hug centric, 6061 aluminum, grade 10 bolts. After I saw a photo, it seemed obvious to me that the WHEEL lug nuts had loosed enough to cause pressure on the lugs, wallowed out the rim lug holes, and finally caused them to snap. Scary stuff!! No one was hurt, but of course the question always arrises...is it worth spending double on Spidertrax? Personally I'd say no. I have Yitamotor on mine and my wife's Toyota. Both are 6061 aluminum, hug centric, grade 10 bolts. I think as long as you're torquing them correctly, using a dab of Loctite, you'll be fine.
I have also read many articles and reviews stating it's possible to add a LITTLE extra wear to the bearings, but not near enough to be concerned with. Almost no damage whatsoever.

 

I will say that a majority of the problems I've had with vehicles especially modified ones, I have created myself by A. using cheap Chinese parts or B. being lazy and failing to do the maintenance. Call it young and dumb I guess but I'm happy to have learned those lessons.

 

I know and I see what you are saying, but on a 4X4 tacoma which is usually the ones which have the bearing issues all of the force is being applied more on the CV rather than the bearing itself. As long as you dont use oversized tires horribly larger than what OE is your wheel bearings will not fail any faster over the usage of a high quality, well designed wheel spacer because one which is properly designed puts the additional outward stress on the hard hub design as well as the lug centrics to keep it all centered. The spacer becomes an integral part of the hub meaning there is no changes to the hub despite the fact you just extended it out x.xx inches.