No spacers for me, thank you! Although, they can be used safely ... But, they better be checked often, IMHO...
there is no need to check them, in fact checking them is more dangerous than leaving them be.
you are supposed to liberally apply red-locktite to the threads of the studs, which has a breaking torque far outside of the rating of the stud. proper installation of red-locktite requires atleast 700 degrees of heat to release the adhesion. furthermore, the material that the spacer is made out of, assuming were talking about spidertrax, is 6061-t6 billet aluminum - which is far, far stronger than the wheel itself. the studs spidertrax uses are forged american slugs that are heat treated to exceed ANSI standards.
what this means is this: proper initial installation will have you torque 10% above threshold, with liberal application of red-locktite. 500 miles later, the lugs need to be broken, cleaned and liberal re-application of red-lockite and torqued to spec. after this, no regular maintenance is required - because they're not going anywhere.
by rechecking the torque and providing undue maintenance - you are bypassing the whole point of using locktite all together. the rotational stress from a 30-36" long torque wrench trying to tighten on said nut will ruin the locktite. thats why regularly checking them is more dangerous than not, assuming you installed them correctly in the first place.
how many of you don't realize that every dually pickup truck is running a factory 6" spacer in the front?
