Are wheel spacers a good idea?

[UCrewX5]

:xoutpost: Glad you finally found your way here

[NeRwEEzy]

just asking, has anyone put on spacers on stock non-sport 17" wheels?

[zerochief]

Originally Posted by rooroo

Hello!

New to forum, X5 owner since '03!

:xoutpost:

[CA777]

The guys at the local tire shop said that putting spacers on any vehicle (obviously it depends on how big they are) will increase the wear and tear on the wheel bearings. This makes sense to me when I think about the hub & bearing taking the weight (like a fulcrum) and the spacer+wheel (like a lever arm) now being longer and exerting more pressure b/c it is farther away from the hub and bearing.

Has anyone here had wheel bearings wear out more quickly after running with spacers? I'm guessing that the reason people on this board haven't run into this is b/c perhaps the spacers are too small to make much of a difference; but if you start getting into 50mm or more, these issues might start to crop up. (?)

[Icer006]

Spacers will induce more wear on the wheel bearings.
Spacers to the rear only will make the car/sav/suv/whatever understeer more.
Sometimes, spacers will create more vibration if they're not perfectly hubcentric.

A few friends and I have used small spacers ~5-10mm on our cars only to clear big brake kits for our [track] cars.

For any other purpose, it's all bling that has its own pros and cons.

[CA777]

Nice. As expected and good to know going forward. Thanks for the info

[rooroo]

Thanks for the welcome guys!

Yeah! it seems like I won't be using spacers... I would like to improve my X5's handling (since it is non-sport) but I can't compromise on safety. I joke to others that my BMW belongs to my kids (two toddlers), but the truth is that the X is our family car. We make a handful of road trips per year to visit family in FL and I don't want to compromise anything while driving on I-75.

From the research I've been doing, recommended by X5rolls, it seems like bigger wider wheels are the way to go.
Problem is, now I have questions about wheels that I can't find answers to.
But I'm having a good time reading all the info about my car!!! Great forum

Roo

[rdbeierle]

I just put 30mm spacers on the back and 12mm spacers on the front. Looks much nicer with the new body kit. No issues so far.