What Are The Wheel Spacers?
The lack of space between the wheel and other components such as the wheel hub can be a cause of nuisance. To make some space among these parts, wheel spacers are used. Wheel spacers for one car can be used for any other car as they are specifically designed to match the bolt pattern of a specific car.
Why do we need them?
The lack of space between the Opel wheel spacers hub assembly and the wheel comes with a lot of problems. For starters, it impacts the performance of your drive. Without any room to move, the tyre rubs against the inner lining of the wheel. It can be easily noticed while taking sharp or even regular turns. Such rubbing impacts the performance of tyres and also results in their wear and tear.
How to install them?
Park your car in a safe spot and unscrew the lug nuts. Use the jack to lift the car. As you need to install the wheel spacers on all four tyres, use four jacks to lift all four corners of your car.
Completely unscrew all the lug nuts and separate the wheel from the hub assembly. Use the special key to unscrew the lug nuts as they can’t be unscrewed without their unique key. The lug studs are generally dirty, use a dry cloth or a water hose to clean it completely.
The third step varies from car to car. The lug studs are of two types, ones that are bolt-on, the others are not bolt-on. If your lug studs are bolt-on you need to “place” the wheel spaces onto them. If your lug studs are not a bolt-on, you need to “slide” wheel spacers onto them.
Place the wheel on the lug studs such that there is a perfect sync between the wheel spacer and the wheel. If you have purchased the wheel spacers from a genuine dealer after matching the size of the bolt pattern of your wheel, your wheel and wheel spacers will set in perfect sync.
Tighten the lug nuts with the help of a wrench. Take every precaution not to leave any nut loose.
Lower the vehicle down slowly, so as not to put any unnecessary pressure on the car from the sudden fall.
Pros of wheel spacers
It gives your car a unique and nice look. Besides giving a clean look to the tightly-packed parts, the design of the spacers is the icing on the cake. If you are a sports enthusiast, you can design the spacers to give your wheels a sporty look. Spacers larger than the size of the wheel gives your car a masculine appearance.
With all the extra space now available to the various parts of the car wheel spacers, your driving experience becomes smooth.
Now tyres can move freely without rubbing against the wheel while taking turns. This not only increases the performance of your tyres but also makes them less prone to wear and tear.
Cons of wheel spacers
Because of the distance between the wheel and the wheel hub, it will become difficult for you to steer your car.
This extra space also makes it hard for your tyres to absorb shocks or bumps. This might make your ride bumpy and uncomfortable.
The extra distance between the wheel and the wheel hub puts extra pressure on the ball bearings. This pressure makes the bearing go bad earlier than expected.
