Spider Trax Catastrophic Failure

Hello from California everyone. I have been absent from the forum for some time as life has caused my priorities to be elsewhere. I do feel a loyalty to this community so I wanted to post what happened to me as a warning to others.

First off, let me start by saying Spider Trax very clearly marks on their instructions that they are for off-road, non-continuous use. I (like I think a lot of people) ignored that safety warning as just something they have to say to protect their liablility and ran them all the time. After having checked them regularly for a while and seeing no wear, cracks, or other problems, I fell short on what should have been regular inspections. I can honestly say the last couple times I rotated the tires it didn't even occur to me to inspect the spacers.

This November, I took my XK places that I never thought I would see. I went through by far the most challenging trails I have ever wheeled. Since then, I have used my XK to pull a cargo trailer a few times and put about 400 on-road miles behind me without incident.

The other day I was driving on a two lanes highway at about 70mph when I felt an odd vibration as if I was driving on the rumble strip. (For those in area that may not have rumble strips, it is a safety system built into the road where a series of grooves is cut in the pavement. When you run over it, it makes noise and a slight vibration to alert you that you have drifted off the road or out of your lane.) The Jeep's vibration got worse as I slowed down. As I pulled of the road it the vibration got much worse.

I got out and walked around the Jeep and saw that I only had one lug left on the front passenger side tire. I got back in and drove very slowly to a place about 100 yards forward where I could get safely away from the 70mph traffic flying by on the highway. I had to turn slightly and the remaining lug snapped. The Jeep fell onto the tire, bending the fender and popping off the fender trim.

Thank god I stopped. Thank god the wheel didn't come off at 70mph on a rural two lane highway where I could have gone off the road and flipped, or worse yet been in a head on collision.

I jacked it up and found that all the lugs had snapped on the Spider Trax spacer. I took the spacer off and was able to get the tire back on the lugs on the hub. This left me enough motion to get the Jeep loaded on the tow truck, but I wouldn't want to drive it this way as it could rub on the curvy highway between where I was and home.

I have not had a chance to take the wheel back off and inspect the spacer or diagnose what might have gone wrong. I will try to take an post some photos as I get time.

Mostly I just wanted to post this since I know lots of people on this forum run Spider Trax, or other spacers. Don't be like me. Don't get lazy. Inspect regularly.

My plan now is to buy new rims with the correct spacing and have my off road tires mounted on them. Then I am going to buy some mall crawling tires for the existing Jeep rims to use when I am not wheeling. It will be a little more expensive in the short term, but will save miles on my good wheeling tires. There is also no price you can put on not crashing at 70mph.

I would love to hear if anyone else finds anything.

I am sad to hear your story considering I am running spidertrax spacers. I am glad your okay and nothing worse happen. You threadlocked and torqued these when put on im assuming?

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I ran Spidertrax spacers for over three years with many crazy off road adventures during that time frame. I never had any issue with them and logged over 75,000 miles with them. Took them off almost two years ago when I got my 17x8 wheels and sold them to my brothers boss who has a 2012 Wrangler. He has been running them ever since again without any issues. How many ft lbs did you have the spacers torqued to the hub and how many ft lbs did you have your wheels torqued to the spacers. Also did you use a good torque wrench when you installed them?

I did torque them but I don't remember without looking at my paper at home what the torque was. Too many cars to keep that all in my head.

I don't use threadlocker, but that shouldnt have made a difference. The studs on the spacer sheared, it wasn't just the lug nuts came off. The nuts keeping the spacer to the hubs were still tight and intact.

Also to be clear, I am not blaming Spider Trax or saying they have an inferior product. I blame myself. This could just as easily have been a factory part that broke from lack of inspection.

So glad to hear from you and the warning is one we should all listen to. I too have failed to inspect the lugs... Another project for this weekend.

I had both my wheels and spacers torqued to 90 ft lbs as per the directions. I know that doesn't seem like a lot but again had zero issues

I had my spacers at 100 ft lbs and same as wheels, never any issues, either did previous owner. Total miles for me was 65k with no issues.

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Glad it did not fail while doing 70, a good warning to keep up on the inspection of the spacers.
Glad you & the family are safe.