I am surprised no on has mentioned that our cars are HUB-CENTRIC.
(Taken from Hyundai Aftermarket from the almighty Random LOL)

"Our wheels/hubs/rotors are "hubcentric". That means that 99% of the "weight" of the car is carried on the wheel's center hub, not on the lugs. If you buy "spacers" that are just discs of metal that are xxmm thick...they remove the "hub centric" weight distribution, and put the weight of the car on the LUGS, not the HUB. Eventually the lug studs fatigue...your wheel goes rolling left while you go right...into a telephone pole. BAD NEWS."

There is ONE EXCEPTION

H&R, the same company that makes high quality springs, also makes high quality HUBCENTRIC spacers. The problem? They are EXPENSIVE. They run about $150 for 2, so you would need $300 worth of spacers to move your wheels out.

One more note to put the fear of wheel spacers and low offset wheels back into your heart.

The lower the wheel offset on FWD vehicles, the more wear and tear on the vehicles bearings. Low offset wheels/wheel spacers also make torque steer worse. My moving the contact patch of the 2 tires farther apart, and also farther out from the point of steering rotation..."bump" steer and "torque" steer are magnified...as is bearing wear. If you've ever noticed. 99% of all aftermarket wheels in 4 lug patters come in +35 offset's or HIGHER. Usually in the +38 to +42 range. Why? (re read above). If you go down to a +25 offset wheel or the equivelant of a +25 offset wheel with spacers...your car will become quite a handful to drive."

Here is the link to the full thread here:http://www.hyundaiaftermarket.com/cgi-bin/...c;f=17;t=001220

Just thought this would be a good time to post this info. I can vouch for the increased bearing wear as I have proper hub-centric spacers from H&R on the back and I will be needing to replace the rear bearings this spring after about 30000kms of use!

 

very useful info! thanks man!!!

 

Best spacers to get are made by H&R

or so i have heard.

 

damn, i sooo wanted to get spacers, this sucks, ok well, so much for that. changing the bearings every few months is waaaaaayyy to costly

 

thank you Cuda.. I was going to mention that our cars are hubcentric, but I was going to wait a bit to see where the conversation was going. This is also why you get a metal or plastic ring that sits inside the "hub" area of any aftermarket rim. It brings a universal style hub into compliance with the vehicles actual hub.

To get away from this, you need to go to an older vehicle. My italian cars are NOT hubcentric.. there is actually no way to even make them hubcentric, the mounting faces on the hub are flat and have no provisions for a ring. I can tell you from experience that these cars are VERY sensitive to how you torque the lugs. Too little and in as few as ten miles, the wheels can come free and leave you in a world of hurt. It is also possible (but very hard to do) to get the rim mounted, but not properly centred.. which makes for a terrible ride and will damage the car.

Be thankful you have the hubcentric design.

Another thing that having a high negatice offset does, it helps keep the car from "tramlining" or trying to follow the camber of the road or any ruts in it.

 

Does anyone have a pic of these wheel spacers or a link to H&Rs site confused.gif
OzFxCoupe do you feel any real difference with the spacers in confused.gif

 

check kspec.com

 

Thanks mang, I had a look & I might investigate making some if they are worth having wink1.gif

 

Yeah, I was considering the H & R spacers at the time but local availability, cost & available thicknesses were all issues...

The main reason I went with the spacers was in preparation for the new alloy wheels I'll be getting (hopefully) shortly... The fact my rotors are captive meant the bolts on the fronts would be in the way... & they stick out around 7mm.

H & R last time I checked went from 5mm to 15mm to 20mm to 25mm... Too little or too much.

The cost for 15mm H & R spacers would've been around $330.00AUD + shipping (cheapest I saw was aound $115.00 or $120.00 USD for a pair of 15mm spacers http://www.optionimports.com/h-r-spacer-hyundai.html)... I paid just under $40.00AUD for the ones I got & their design meant they would just fit over the captive bolts.

I must admit, I had no idea about the issues with them potentially putting stress on the studs & the bearings but so far I've had no noticable problems with torque steer (no more than before anyway). I'll keep an eye on the bearings over the coming months but so far everything seems fine.

Col, I'd be lying if I said the extra 16mm track made a huge difference but it's definitely noticable going around corners. Steering felt a lil' funny at first but you get used to it. Also, with Sydney roads being absolute crap I would say they've actually reduced the amount the car tramlines.

But if they're gonna stuff up the bearings I may need to re-think everything...

 

ya ul make up in paying for bearings if they break, ull probably pay enough for bearings to equel the price of your spacers