Front hub require cap style wheel spacer?

[anderzen]

Hello All,

Found a good set of wheels locally (17x7.5 ET40) that I am having tires (225/45r17) mounted on later on today...

Test fit the wheels and the front is maybe 3-5mm away from strut, with tires I thought it may be cutting it close. The car is also lowered on H&R springs.

If I run a spacer in the front do I need the cap style to clear the front hub grease cap? I ask this because I needed them for my W203 in the front which has a very similar grease cap hub...
Most I would run is 5-10mm.

Here is the cap style spacer I am referring to:

traditional spacer with lip:


Thx,
ANDERZÉN

 

[gsxr]

Found a good set of wheels locally (17x7.5 ET40) that I am having tires (225/45r17) mounted on later on today...

Test fit the wheels and the front is maybe 3-5mm away from strut, with tires I thought it may be cutting it close. The car is also lowered on H&R springs.

If I run a spacer in the front do I need the cap style to clear the front hub grease cap? I ask this because I needed them for my W203 in the front which has a very similar grease cap hub... Most I would run is 5-10mm.

3-5mm away from the strut is fine, and most 225/45 tires should also clear. Since the strut tube is angled, it will be further away from the tire than from the wheel lip. Install them as-is, without spacers. AMG wheel install docs indicate that even ET42 (another 2mm closer to the strut) is still OK, with a 225/45/17 tire.

Spacers should not be necessary with this setup, and will only cause headaches...

 

[anderzen]

Thank you, figured it may be fine but wanted to ask the experienced!

as for future reference, do the fronts use regular or capped spacers?

 

[gsxr]

Thank you, figured it may be fine but wanted to ask the experienced!

as for future reference, do the fronts use regular or capped spacers?

Depends on the wheel and/or spacer design I think, but I've heard that in general I've heard that often the front dust cap needs to be removed, so a "capped" spacer would make sense to keep the grease clean. Another reason I avoid spacers if at all possible. MB doesn't approve spacers either, btw.

 

[2phast]

Depends on the wheel and/or spacer design I think, but I've heard that in general I've heard that often the front dust cap needs to be removed, so a "capped" spacer would make sense to keep the grease clean. Another reason I avoid spacers if at all possible. MB doesn't approve spacers either, btw.

No one really approves of spacers. Most tire shops won't work on your car once they see your running spacers.

You can pop off your dust caps and grind those lips down so the normal spacers will fit correctly if you absolutely must use them

 

[anderzen]

Welp… The wheels fit no problem

I know most people try to avoid spacers, I was one such person previously who felt if they could be avoided, just don’t. However with somewhat limited aftermarket wheel options in correct spec for most benzes, they are very useful. The most important part is getting quality units and correct spec as with anything, brands like H&R, Eibach etc.
Porsche has used them from factory as an option on 911’s for years, so that gave me confidence before trying myself. Been over a year with 20mm spacers all around on my C55, with LOTS of spirited driving and have had zero issues.

that said, in this case just didn’t need them

 

[2phast]

Welp… The wheels fit no problem

I know most people try to avoid spacers, I was one such person previously who felt if they could be avoided, just don’t. However with somewhat limited aftermarket wheel options in correct spec for most benzes, they are very useful. The most important part is getting quality units and correct spec as with anything, brands like H&R, Eibach etc.
Porsche has used them from factory as an option on 911’s for years, so that gave me confidence before trying myself. Been over a year with 20mm spacers all around on my C55, with LOTS of spirited driving and have had zero issues.

that said, in this case just didn’t need them

I never implied they were bad, assuming they are done correctly. They get a bad rap due to some not being hub centric or people not using longer lug bolts to compensate for the reduced amount of threads going into your hub. The improper use and/or poor quality makes the rounds on the forums and generates the negative attitude towards them. Tires shops refusing to work on cars with spacers don't help.

Lorinser uses hub centric spacers for many of their wheels. They use the spacers to adjust offset based on the car your installing them on. If I recall correctly, you can't really use Lorinsers without the spacers, as the hub bore is larger than 66.6. You could if you used some hub centric rings to drop the bore down to 66.6.

Ran into an issue with LM6's on my CLK32k and I ended up arguing with the tire store manager. They finally relented after they looked up Lorinser wheels and discovered that the LM6 has to use a spacer, since it was designed that way.

 

[anderzen]

Of course, was more so just speaking out loud You’re definitely right about where most of the bad rap comes from.
Totally agree, I have converted all of my MB’s to Motorsport Hardware studs and lug nuts to avoid the whole changing bolt lengths for different offsets etc. SO much easier for all things wheels imo if you plan on changing things up at any time.
The guys at discount tire made me install my spacers on the C55 one time because they said they will only touch bolt on spacers… they also had to double check today if they were allowed to work on stud conversions but did in the end.

Lorinser’s have really high offsets from memory, like in the 60s sometime.

I did use hubcentric rings for this application to go from 74.1-66.6