Wheel spacers do they mess up the handling

Reeyad · Post by **Reeyad** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 1:43 pm

Just idea.......

Was thinking about wheel spacers to widen the wheels so they fill up the arches better and give it a slightly meaner look.

However I know nothing of these and the effect they will have on the car.

I have heard that if the tire is outside the arch, this fails the MOT.

Any of your peeps have done this to your cars and advise will be welcome if its a No No mod.

cheers people.............

carmadaaron · Post by **carmadaaron** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 2:20 pm

i havent had them on my cars before, but i would think that putting spacers in will widen the track, which means it handles Better! I dont think you will fail MOT with standard wheels with spacers, unless you go crazy with them.. like 50mm or something

10-20mm seems sensible

omicron · Post by **omicron** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 2:44 pm

The main point to bear in mind is that your insurance really, really won't be happy about them.

Reeyad · Post by **Reeyad** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 3:44 pm

omicron wrote:The main point to bear in mind is that your insurance really, really won't be happy about them.

My insurance is pretty ok with mods elephant.co.uk, they let me do quite a lot of mods on my old mk4 polo.

I really wanna know what these spacer will do to the car in-terms of handling, comfort and safety.

omicron · Post by **omicron** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 3:58 pm

I don't think they'll like them. I know from the kit cars that Adrian Flux won't touch them, and they claim to insure anything.

Reeyad · Post by **Reeyad** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 4:33 pm

omicron wrote:I don't think they'll like them. I know from the kit cars that Adrian Flux won't touch them, and they claim to insure anything.

Maybe theres a safety reason for this.................

Can any1 enlighten further................

ModifiedMadness · Post by **ModifiedMadness** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 4:48 pm

Reeyad wrote:
omicron wrote:The main point to bear in mind is that your insurance really, really won't be happy about them.
My insurance is pretty ok with mods elephant.co.uk, they let me do quite a lot of mods on my old mk4 polo.

I really wanna know what these spacer will do to the car in-terms of handling, comfort and safety.

They bloody charge for them though, I paid over a hundred quid extra for having my front bumper smoothed!

omicron · Post by **omicron** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 5:04 pm

ModifiedMadness wrote:
Reeyad wrote:
omicron wrote:The main point to bear in mind is that your insurance really, really won't be happy about them.
My insurance is pretty ok with mods elephant.co.uk, they let me do quite a lot of mods on my old mk4 polo.

I really wanna know what these spacer will do to the car in-terms of handling, comfort and safety.
They bloody charge for them though, I paid over a hundred quid extra for having my front bumper smoothed!

Weird, the wheels on my Mk2 didn't make any difference at all.

ModifiedMadness · Post by **ModifiedMadness** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 5:09 pm

Maybe it's just because mine was a modification to the car itself, I suppose they think, if you damage your wheels, you won't claim, whereas if I was to crash then I'd have to claim for a new bumper (although it would be a standard one not a smoothed one)

Post by **Josh_PoloGTi** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 11:11 pm

I had 20mm Hubcentric spacers on each side of the rear of my Polo GTi.

Lowered on coilovers, it looked fantastic.

I was insured with Greenlight and iirc, they didn't charge me any extra.

Made the car handle much better too!

Reeyad · Post by **Reeyad** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 4:48 pm

Josh_PoloGTi wrote:I had 20mm Hubcentric spacers on each side of the rear of my Polo GTi.

Lowered on coilovers, it looked fantastic.

I was insured with Greenlight and iirc, they didn't charge me any extra.

Made the car handle much better too!

So it improved your handling how about comfort, im being cheeky you dont have any before and after pics you could dig out at all Pretty Please !

Post by **Josh_PoloGTi** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 11:01 pm

No difference in comfort.

No before pics either, but check out the Polo GTi picture thread and mine's in there somewhere.

JWC · Post by **JWC** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:43 am

You really should use spacers very carefully. You would normally use one to ensure suspension or bodywork clearance, nothing else. You must use them in pairs on the same axle.

There are susbstantial safety concerns when using spacers as well that you need to watch out for. The number one concern is the amount of thread you have that is actually holding your wheels on. Alloys require longer bolts, and you need longer bolts still for a spacer. The leverage can also cause problems especially when your wheel no longer reaches the spigot.

Your loads should be transmitted by the spigot and not the bolts, if your spacer is too long you could end up minus a wheel on a corner which will see you on your roof. This a a very large problem for fords that do have studs which cannot be extended, instead of bolts.

Handling will be adversly affected by any modification to the running gear geometry. VW do not just stick random wheels on their cars like some branch of halfords, they design the car to have a specific track, which is all to do with moment arms. Extending it may make you feel it handles better, but be careful especially on the front where the position of the centre of the tyre has huge implications on stability.

I have had to use two narrow spacers on my moms mk3 polo saloon which has polo 16V alloys, but I would have preferred not to. Use with caution, and not for cosmetics.

Reeyad · Post by **Reeyad** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 12:10 pm

Cheers JWC,

I think il take this off me list of mods, it looks like a safety issue I dont want to take......

Post by **Josh_PoloGTi** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 7:37 pm

If you get TuV approved spacers that are hubcentric (ie the spigot or hub is extended) and use high quality bolts that are the same amount longer than your standard bolts as your spacer (so you don't loose any threads into the hub), then you should be fine.

I've run spacers on my GTi for ages, and I've also been running 5x100 to 5x130 adapter spacers (25mm) on my Fabia for months too.

H&R / FK / Eibach all make decent spacers.