Learned a Lesson from Wheel Spacers

B

BamaDrewski

New member
I once put 2008 Toyota Tacoma rims on my rig and they required wheel spacers. I was having terrible issues with warped (Tundra upgraded) rotors and vibration when I hit the brakes.

Sold my spacers to a guy on T4R and replaced the pads and the original OE rims which I refinished. No issues with warped rotors or spotting braking since I went back to my original OE rims and that has been some 25K+ miles ago....

Anyone else experience this?
 
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I have been running 2007 4runner rims with spacers for over a year with great results. OEM rotors. Smooth and responsive breaking.:noidea:
 
You had brake issues and changed all at once wheels, spacers, and pads, and somehow came to the conclusion it was exclusively the spacers?
 
snivilous said:
You had brake issues and changed all at once wheels, spacers, and pads, and somehow came to the conclusion it was exclusively the spacers?
Click to expand...

This.

You changed too many things all at once. And attributed the spacers to be the root cause.

Here's the thing. Many manufactures Ignore the "factory" specs on rotors. Some brands are true to OEM form and are dead on. I've seen variances of .5-1mm on brake rotor thickness. Doesn't seem like much, but on rotors that is in insane amount of heat stability. Also, you could have actually had crappy brand of spacers. Using spacers that are hub centric, and also retain the hub centric format to the rim, is absolutely important.

Couple all that with the fact that Toyota Tacoma's and 4Runners are well known for warping rotors.... Makes me think that blaming one part out of all that you swapped. Is a knee jerk reaction.
 
BamaDrewski said:
I once put 2008 Toyota Tacoma rims on my rig and they required wheel spacers. I was having terrible issues with warped (Tundra upgraded) rotors and vibration when I hit the brakes.

Sold my spacers to a guy on T4R and replaced the pads and the original OE rims which I refinished. No issues with warped rotors or spotting braking since I went back to my original OE rims and that has been some 25K+ miles ago....

Anyone else experience this?
Click to expand...

Yeah, too many variables. I personally don't like spacers, but properly installed hub centric spacers shouldn't create a vibration under braking. I will say though that if the assembly isn't right, it could exasperate the warped rotor feel. Before I did my Tundra upgrade I had what I though was horribly warped rotors, I changed the wheels and tires to the 16" that would accommodate the upgrade and the warped pulsing almost went away. For a moment I thought I had discovered some great anomaly, but the warped rotor pulsing was actually only lessened, it was still there and got worse after a time.

:cheer2:
 
IBallEngineer said:
Yeah, too many variables. I personally don't like spacers, but properly installed hub centric spacers shouldn't create a vibration under braking. I will say though that if the assembly isn't right, it could exasperate the warped rotor feel. Before I did my Tundra upgrade I had what I though was horribly warped rotors, I changed the wheels and tires to the 16" that would accommodate the upgrade and the warped pulsing almost went away. For a moment I thought I had discovered some great anomaly, but the warped rotor pulsing was actually only lessened, it was still there and got worse after a time.

:cheer2:
Click to expand...

I agree with this. I don't like spacers either. I ran them for almost 2 years. In that time I warped two sets of rotors. Like you said, they will magnify any issues with the rotors, or any other front end vibrations related to spinning parts components.

For op, if the spacers were slightly misaligned, even if they had a slight defect from the manufacturer, then they can certainly cause vibrations in the given wheel, which over time will contribute to warping the rotor.
 
1985taylor1925 said:
For op, if the spacers were slightly misaligned, even if they had a slight defect from the manufacturer, then they can certainly cause vibrations in the given wheel, which over time will contribute to warping the rotor.
Click to expand...


Someone better notify the guy he sold these to! :lmao:
 
Running 1:25 inch spidertrax spacers on a 97 4Runner with 33x13:5 swamper IROKS on 17x9 steel wheels for 2 years. No issues. The wheel/tire combo weighs 100 pounds. That's a lot of weight hanging out and I have no issues at all from it.
 
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