I broke a bolt off my left rear spacer. Do I need to replace that one spacer? Rear two spacers? Or all four spacers?
TIA!
TIA!
Do spacers need to match?
- Thread starter TahoeJim
- Start date
First thing I would do is understand why the wheel stud broke. Looking at the uneven wear patterns on the face of the spacer there was a clear loss of clamp load which caused the wheel to move relative to the spacer. Were lug nut torques not checked or is there a quality issue with the spacer?
The yellow circles show the rim was loose, the blue circle could be loose too but it could be from the hit when the other stud broke. What does the back of the rim look like? I would pull the other three wheels and do a torque check on the inner studs and then again on the rim studs.
Did you notice any vibration before the stud broke?
Did you notice any vibration before the stud broke?
Was this a defect? Was the rim loose? Was the rim not seated the whole way flush against the spacer? Are the other spacers like this? Do the spacers have Loctite on the OEM studs? If I couldn't 100% answer these questions, I'd get all 4 replaced.
Addendum on this. I didn’t give enough context to my question.
Put maybe 600 miles on collectively after swapping to winter tires. Stopped at a store and when I left felt like I had a weird out of balance wheel or a flat spot on a tire. Got home (few miles)… was missing a lug nut and two others were loose. I’ve always been pretty obsessive about torquing and retorquing but maybe I missed a wheel?
Put nuts on and retorqued. Later when I went to swap back to summer tires, a lug bolt broke off the spacer… probably compromised from the few miles I drove with it loose.
I replaced the two rear spacers.
Put maybe 600 miles on collectively after swapping to winter tires. Stopped at a store and when I left felt like I had a weird out of balance wheel or a flat spot on a tire. Got home (few miles)… was missing a lug nut and two others were loose. I’ve always been pretty obsessive about torquing and retorquing but maybe I missed a wheel?
Put nuts on and retorqued. Later when I went to swap back to summer tires, a lug bolt broke off the spacer… probably compromised from the few miles I drove with it loose.
I replaced the two rear spacers.
I think there was enough play from the missing and loose lugs.
I still don’t understand how it could feel fine when I pulled into the grocery store, and be loose when I pulled out.
Had I realized what was happening instead of thinking it was an out of balance wheel, I would have stopped and tightened everything instead of driving home
That last drive was probably the proverbial nail in the coffin...
When you were driving the lugs were loaded and at a higher temp so you didn't notice anything abnormal. When you stopped you removed the dynamic load, and everything cooled a bit (relatively speaking). Start moving again and things are displaced somewhat from where they need to be and you notice the "lash" in the system.