G.I.G.
New member
This subject came up in another thread and I wanted to start a new topic addressing the long-term effects (if any) of wheel spacers on wheel bearings or other suspension components.
Wheel spacers seem to be a pretty popular and inexpensive mod for 4R's, especially 4th gens that have wider fender flares. I have heard that wheel spacers and larger off-set wheels (FJ wheels, TRD wheels, etc.) put greater strain on wheel bearings and could possibly burn them out faster. I have also heard that some tire and alignment shops won't touch your wheels due to liability reasons.
I called Spidertrax and a local, reputable Toyota 4-wheel drive shop and both of them told me that yes, anytime you move the wheels out that you are putting more strain on the wheel bearings but they don't know of any long-term adverse affects of running spacers. The guy at Spidertrax said that conceivably you might go through a set of wheel bearings a few thousand miles sooner over the course of their life if you had not been running wheel spacers, but overall it was not a big enough difference in overall life of a wheel bearing.
I wanted to hear from the folks here who have been running wheel spacers for a while to see if they have noticed any reliablity issues and/or if they have encountered shops that won't do alignenments, tire balancing, tire rotation, etc. because they were running wheel spacers.
Wheel spacers seem to be a pretty popular and inexpensive mod for 4R's, especially 4th gens that have wider fender flares. I have heard that wheel spacers and larger off-set wheels (FJ wheels, TRD wheels, etc.) put greater strain on wheel bearings and could possibly burn them out faster. I have also heard that some tire and alignment shops won't touch your wheels due to liability reasons.
I called Spidertrax and a local, reputable Toyota 4-wheel drive shop and both of them told me that yes, anytime you move the wheels out that you are putting more strain on the wheel bearings but they don't know of any long-term adverse affects of running spacers. The guy at Spidertrax said that conceivably you might go through a set of wheel bearings a few thousand miles sooner over the course of their life if you had not been running wheel spacers, but overall it was not a big enough difference in overall life of a wheel bearing.
I wanted to hear from the folks here who have been running wheel spacers for a while to see if they have noticed any reliablity issues and/or if they have encountered shops that won't do alignenments, tire balancing, tire rotation, etc. because they were running wheel spacers.
