Wheel Spacers

I doubt it would void insurance unless it was shown to have caused the accident.

A bit like being drunk in an accident that was not your fault. You would be at the mercy of the insurance company who could well void your insurance. As I understand "cause" is not important if you have an illegally modified vehicle and they choose to notice it.

Flynnie

ross,
it would be banned because it is an alteration to the vehicle specifications that are NOT fitted on the vehicle when manufactured and therefore NOT specified on the insurance policy as fitted to the vehicle.

It will also add more pressure to the wheel bearings as the wheel is offset away from the bearing.
My rims are offset, they are also noted on my insurance policy :)

Maîneÿ . . .

I never said they were legal.I have had a few claims over the years and never been knocked back on illegal modifications and no one has ever climbed under there to see if I had wheel spacers.

Offset rims put the same pressure on wheel bearings as spacers id it widens the track by the same amount

They also make good pot stands to stop your bench tops burning

Yeah but a bit heavy if you have the 50mm Ha Ha

I agree with you .
the vehicle is unroadworthy if they are fitted .
cheers mechpete

I thought about doing that when tossing up wheel and tyre combinations recently. Since I have never had a tram tracking problem the idea soon went out of my head. Also having different wheels front and back and the possible need for two different spares would be against the KISS principle. Still, I wonder if anyone has really done it.

Flynnie

Why would you have 2 different wheels with spacers??

yes, the small gain is not much when measured in cms, but it definitely does make a huge difference to the drivability of the vehicle

Maîneÿ . . .

Hi John

I use wheel spacers all the time depending which wheel set I have on.

I had some made up out of aluminium plate 6mm thick such that 1 or 2 can be used.

First wheel offset - postive is such that wheel rim is moved inwards towards the engine giving overall less track.

Most standard wheels have something like +10 mm , whereas aftermarket wheels are often 0 offset if alloy with some common wheels up to -22mm.

Reasons for use - my main reason is that some of my wheel rims just touch the brake calipers and a 6mm plate spaces them out.
THis also allows big tyres to be positioned inside wheel arch for better clearance.


(Funny story - once got a set of rims/tyres delivered late at night for big trip next day - out them on in dark and next morning rushed around getting up jumped in car and it would not move - stalled everytime I let clutch out - spent long time trying to sort out what must have been a jammed on handbrake - only to find wheel rims were jammed to calipers and had to change wheel set back - talk about dumb.)

Other - Reasons , many of our newer cars have poor rollover stability and widening the track with makes them a little better - espically if the owner has
rasied the suspension on an already low stability car.


Others of our new cars - like some cruisers have back wheel track narrower than front - not by a few mm but by around 100mm - this is bads news and makes car face a lot more rolling resistance, as well as being twitchy.
Wheel spacers of up to 50mm are around to fix this.

In my 4 wheels sets , I have differing offsets and spacers are sometimes used to mix/match wheels and tyres.

2 of my spacers - have been lost to friends who do also use them as shaker says ,to move rear wheel away from door.

A non- approved use is that my wife grabs a spare spacer I carry and puts it on our little stove to space saucepan away from hot gas.

Are illegal Nationwide Can be used off road but definitely not on road.

Just because you can buy something doesnt mean you can use it anywhere you like.

Off road on private land, or an organised event only.
RWC laws apply to all gazetted tracks.