Wheel Spacer Failure (Fact or Fiction)

[Budasac]

I personally know one person who had a spacer failure. It's my buddies brother-in-law. Switched from his winter to summer rims. Front pass. spacers lugs where only fingertight. Threw the wheel on and buttoned it up. I don't know how far he went before the wheel fell off, but it wasn't far.

I'm pretty sure that about 95% of the issues with spacers are caused by knuckleheads like that.

[Omelet]

Yep, pure genious!

However that is not a failure, that is user error.

[Sal-XK]

X2 on user error but those users like that will jump around and scream about how bad spacers are and they caused his wheel to fall off contributing to the perception that spacers are unsafe.

[Budasac]

X2 on user error but those users like that will jump around and scream about how bad spacers are and they caused his wheel to fall off contributing to the perception that spacers are unsafe.

Exactly. I think these people are the source of most of the "I used spacers and my wheel fell off" stories.

I've never personally heard of or seen a spacer fail due to a defect in the spacer itself.

In NJ spacers are actually banned for use on the road.

[Sal-XK]

Everything is illegal up north

[superacerc]

You know those NJ guys have to be babied. You can't expect them to put spacers on correctly when they haven't learned how to pump their own gas yet either. lol I'm kidding guys. Mine have been working fine for the past 3 years. I've had 2 different sized sets.

[Matt]

Lol low blow!!

[cico7]

X2 on user error but those users like that will jump around and scream about how bad spacers are and they caused his wheel to fall off contributing to the perception that spacers are unsafe.

Spacers are not unsafe, it's the nuts!

[Matt]

The issue with spacers is if they're not properly torqued & maintained. Over torquing And under torquing can result in faster and more excessive failures as opposed to over/under torquing wheels. So you really need to follow directions, otherwise they do become "unsafe". So while most failures can be attributed to "user error", there's the inherent factor that they're not as "user friendly" which ultimately leads to these user errors.