jchapura

With new 15mm wheel spacers on all four corners, when driving on a regular/imperfect road, I notice a subtle increased vibration in the lightly held stock steering wheel.

When the road is new (asphalt) or known to be really smooth, I feel no vibration.

Would it be expected to feel increased vibration with 15mm of wheel spacing where none was present with no spacers on the same road?

I don't think the quality of the spacer is the variable but the suspension/car geometry. I guess I wouldn't have imagined the 15mm was sufficient to amplify the road imperfections.

der Geist

I wouldn't think it would be either but I am no expert on suspension geometry.
Couple things to check-
I would check and make sure all your lugs are torqued to spec.
Are the spacers are hub-centric, if not that may be your problem.
It could be that the road surface and your tires just don't get along.
Struts? You don't have that many miles on your car but if it is 11 tears old you could have blown one, especially if you drive on a crappy road every day. See if one is leaking oil.

jchapura

Those are great suggestions.

I did torgue the bolts to 110 ft-lbs on the night of installation and then rechecked after about 40 miles of driving. The spacers are hub centric and I did check the play on the rotor and the wheel - no issues. Struts - I definitely inspected them for obvious signs of wetness and found none.

Keep the ideas coming...

OKB

I dont think you would ever feel any difference on a car with or w/out a spacer. I think you have them on wrong, not centered or sitting right, or bad, off center spacer. all 4 have flanges?
do they fit tight on the hubs? Do they fit smooth on the hub and able to turn and feel no play? do they fit to the wheels opening flat and smooth? Did you sand or clean or smooth off all surfaces as you put them on?

nismosd

Easy way to check is to remove the spacers and drive on the same road where the vibrations were felt. Also if the car has been sitting, the first few miles can have slight vibrations due to tire being out of round. Some tires do it more than others.

Saaboteur

Are the spacers hub and wheel centric? If so, there should be no problems at all.

gasongasoff

I had that exact same problem when I used spacers that weren't perfect hubcentric. Which ones did you install?

Quadcammer

Take the wheels off. then put them back on and tight them as much ad you can with the car in the air. I'm talking hold the wheel with one hand as you tighten with the other. then drop the car and final torque. that solved a slight vibration issue I had

nwGTS

Wait a sec. So you feel no bumps on a flat road but you feel bumps on a bumpy road? That's basically what you're telling us.

19VFB19

I dont think.he is being fecitious.
Sometimes when you do some changes you're awareness changes as well on your first few drives.
You may feel or hear thngs you may have felt or heard before but didnt really find concerning and were normal.
If the car feels good on a new flat paved road... I would say the car is not the problem.

Do the above checks for due diligence, and for piece of mind... but it may just be the road causng the issue you're concerned about....

jchapura

The car's a daily driver. I take the same route to work every day. So I think I've memorized a "feel" for sections of the route.

After the wheel spacers, in certain sections I felt a subtle vibration in a lightly held steering wheel, that I didn't feel in the same section and lightly held steering wheel when the spacers were not on the car.

So, on a "perfect" road, I feel no steering wheel vibration - spacers or no spacers. On an apparently slightly imperfect road, I feel a subtly steering wheel vibration with spacers on the car. I was wondering if the size of my spacers might amplify sufficiently the imperfections in the road. A before and after test with seemingly one variable - the spacers.

The spacers are hub centric, and I did test fit the spacers on the rotors and the wheels prior to final mounting. The max play I felt on a single wheel was on the order of .005 in - at the spacer to rotor interface. Unfortunately, I don't remember the position on the car.

I did clean all mating surfaces prior to final mounting.

For the record, I'm running Bridgestone S04s that are about one year old, 10k miles. The wheel spacers are from "Precision European Motorwerks".

Quadcammer - are you suggesting remounting the wheels but this time purposely load the wheel in the "up" position? That should not be a problem with all five bolts loose and near their final position and then using a lever (2x4) on the bottom of the assembly.

JuanK20

Low quality wheel spacers will do that. On my BMW i had cheap ebay aluminum spacers and the wheel vibrated. After getting an alignment and wheels balanced, the vibration didn't go away. I switched to Turner Motorsport spacers and the vibration disappeared.

jchapura

JuanK - did they vibrate "all" the time, even on roads that were seemingly perfect, or roads that were pretty darn smooth when you didn't run spacers?

nwGTS

This may be true for him. The scrub radius changes with spacers and if unbalanced can lead to the symptoms described. I'd retorque everything though. Spacers are so close to the center of radius on a wheel that they would need to be really messed up to create a shimmy or vibration.

JuanK20

The car had a vibration at highway speeds. 50-60mph. Almost as if i needed new rotors or something. It was hard to believe that spacers will cause this, since it's just really a piece of metal. But turns out, most cheap spacers aren't balanced as well as higher end ones. I have RSS spacers on my 997 and i have zero issues.