Are Wheel Adapters and Spacers Bad for Your Truck? Are They Safe?

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Wheel Adapters Vs. Wheel Spacers

Before getting into the nitty-gritty safety issues, let’s first delve into what these two products are, their particular uses, and the characteristics that set them apart.

Wheel adapters are an inexpensive yet effective means of adapting your vehicle’s hub to a wheel with a different bolt pattern or bolt circle. Though available in different thicknesses and bolt patterns, all-wheel adapters utilize the same basic form factor. 

An adapter begins with a precision-machined ring of billet aluminum with machined holes reflecting your vehicle’s bolt pattern, allowing you to secure the adapter to your hub. Between the lug holes, lug studs are pressed into the adapter, coinciding with the bolt pattern of your new wheels. 

Once the adapter is bolted into place, your new wheels utilize the adapter’s integrated studs for mounting, thus “adapting” your vehicle’s hub to accept wheels with a different bolt pattern. 

What Are Wheel Spacers?

Wheel spacers are… basically the same thing as wheel adapters; at least, bolt-on wheel spacers are. Bolt-on-wheel spacers utilize the same billet aluminum construction with pre-drilled, recessed lug holes and integrated studs; however, with one primary difference—the bolt circle. 

In the case of wheel spacers, the bolt circle of your vehicle coincides with the pattern of the wheel spacer’s integrated studs, allowing you to reuse your vehicle’s factory/existing wheels.  

Slip-on wheel spacers are a completely different animal, however. While still constructed from aluminum (billet or cast), slip-on spacers are typically thin and don’t feature integrated studs. Instead of bolting the spacer to the hub and the wheel to the spacer, slip-on spacers install over your vehicle’s factory wheel studs between the wheel and hub. The wheel is then bolted on top, sandwiching the spacer in between.

Are Wheel Adapters and Spacers Safe on Trucks? 

Wheel spacers and adapters can be safe if you purchase a high-quality product, install them to spec, and routinely inspect them for signs of damage. If they weren’t safe, RealTruck wouldn't sell them.

Are Wheel Adapters and Spacers Bad for Your Truck? 

Like most modifications, “good” and “bad” are relative terms. While no product is inherently so, some increase wear and tear on other components. 

The most common complaint about wheel spacers and adapters stems from the additional strain applied to your vehicle’s front-end components, such as wheel bearings and ball joints. However, it’s important to remember that any modification that increases the load on your vehicle’s hub will have the same effect; ie: oversized tires, wide wheels, etc. 

One of the only notable areas negatively impacted by wheel spacers or adapters is payload and towing capacity. While every wheel spacer is different, it’s best to confirm weight ratings with the manufacturer before hauling heavy loads.

Choosing Safe Adapters and Spacers For Your Truck

To delve deeper into the matter of safety, let’s divide this section into four primary categories–quality, fitment, size, and matter of installation. 

Quality

One of the biggest factors determining the safety of a set of wheel spacers or adapters is quality, which can vary significantly depending on the manufacturer. Quality wheel spacers feature premium construction, consisting of materials like 6061-T6 billet aluminum and high-strength grade-8 hardware. In most cases, cast aluminum and unspecified stud grades should be avoided.  

Fitment

While this may seem trivial, proper fitment is essential to the safety of wheel spacers or adapters. It’s important to remember that just because something can be bolted to your vehicle does NOT mean it fits. Confused? Well, let’s dig deeper. 

Bolt-on wheel spacers and adapters should feature the same thread pitch and stud size as your original wheel studs, ensuring no compatibility issues with factory lug nuts. 

Additionally, wheel spacers or adapters should be hub-centric–meaning the inner bore of the spacer matches the outer bore of your vehicle’s hub. This design allows the weight of your vehicle to rest on the hub rather than the studs. Hub-centric wheel spacers should also have a machined lip on the mounting flange that matches the outer diameter of your vehicle’s hub, allowing your factory wheels to rest on the spacer's pseudo-hub rather than the integrated lug studs.

Size

A bolt-on spacer or adapter must be the proper thickness to completely cover your vehicle’s factory wheel studs. If your vehicle’s wheel studs protrude past the mounting surface of the spacer, your wheel will not sit flat, significantly diminishing safety. The only exception to this is if your vehicle’s wheels feature indentations in the rear mounting flange, allowing the wheel to make full contact with the hub as the protruding studs extend into the indentations. 

Additionally, slip-on spacers must be minimal in thickness to maintain proper thread engagement between the wheel stud and lug nuts. As a rule of thumb, consult the attached chart for minimum acceptable lug nut turns per stud size:

What Uses Do Wheel Spacers and Adapters Serve? 

Though we’ve briefly discussed purposes earlier in the text, let’s quickly go over the main benefits of each product. 

What Do Wheel Adapters Do?

Wheel adapters adapt your vehicle’s hub to accept a wheel with a different bolt circle than what was originally installed. For instance, if your truck has a bolt pattern of 5x114.3, but you wish to install a set of wheels with a 5x135 bolt pattern, you can use a wheel adapter to convert your vehicle’s hub to 5x135 as well, thus accepting the new wheel. As a bonus, wheel adapters move your vehicle’s wheels further outwards, providing a tough, rugged stance. 

What Do Wheel Spacers Do? 

On the other hand, wheel spacers are designed exclusively for widening your vehicle’s track width. Whether for aesthetic purposes or to provide additional clearance between wheels/tires and suspension components.

If you can’t reach the minimum allowed number of turns with a slip-on spacer installed, either a thinner wheel spacer or longer lug studs are necessary.  

Installation

User error is the source of countless horror stories regarding wheel spacers and adapters. If you take a look at every failure, there’s a good chance that most products were installed incorrectly. The most common mistakes are using an impact gun, failing to perform a final torque, not using a thread-locking compound, and failing to monitor torque at manufacturer-specified intervals. 

However, if you install bolt-on wheel spacers and adapters according to the manufacturer-provided instructions, problems are few and far between. 

Find Wheel Adapters and Spacers That Fit Your Truck

For your convenience, RealTruck makes finding wheel spacers and adapters that fit your ride quick and easy. Upon clicking the above link, input your particular year, make, and model for a filtered list of every compatible product!

And if you’re still on the fence about wheel spacers and adapters, check out RealTruck’s extensive selection of aftermarket wheels to find a product that best fits your ride.

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