Drew4Noles

I have an Unlimited JK with stock rims and 2inch lift. I have seen some of the pros and cons of using wheel spacers but most of the forums are for modified OEM wheels and tires. I just wanted to see if anyone else uses wheel spacers with stock wheels and stock/all terrain tires. Images before and after would be great too. Thanks.

afpilot82

Plenty of people run spacers without any issues, Spidertrax 1.5" tend to be the most popular for good reason. Install them correctly, recheck the nuts at regular intervals and you'll be fine. Don't cheap out and buy no-name eBay spacers just to save a little.

Rednroll

Wheel Spacers Pro/Cons (Most of this I don't understand)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWijfooeSyU I'll be running stock wheels/tires with spacers shortly due to I'll be installing a lift and won't be getting new wheels/tires until sometime after installing the lift and most have indicated I will likely need spacers with the lift due to potential rubbing on the rear sway bars.

ToledoDave

We run 2" spacers. :/ we love the wide stance and no issues. Prior to spacers we rubbed the front air damn/plastic belly pan. At same time changed the bumpers.

Compshooter

We have 2" spacers in all three of our Wranglers, two Rubicons and one Willys.

We all have the stock runs and tires in and haven't had any problems whatsoever.

Spacers will always be on my must have mods. They make the wranglers so much better looking and driving.

Drew4Noles

That's what I was thinking about doing as well. I found some spacers that come with a leveling lift kit to add height and wider stance while still using stock wheels and all terrain Nitto Grapplers. I found another thread that showed a 2 inch lift with 1.5 inch spacer. I may go 2.5 inch and 2 inch spacer. It would prevent any wheel rub and add to the looks of the Jeep.

mr72

I'll be the odd man out and say that running spacers is a certified bad idea, but of course so is running non-stock offset wheels for all of the same reasons.

Seems Jeep guys don't bother to think about anything except appearance when choosing wheels, lift, etc., and then try and justify poor choices by claims of improved off-road performance but wheel spacers are going to reduce performance in pretty much every measurable way with almost no upside performance-wise except for increased tire clearance, which you won't need anyway if you don't run larger tires.

I'm firmly in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" camp. I would never argue that Jeep have done a great job engineering the suspension on the JK, which is archaic at best, but it certainly can't afford to be made any worse by ill-advised mods, even if virtually every Jeep enthusiast does these mods regardless of performance side effects.

Greep

Been running spacers with stock (painted) wheels for 100k miles. Several trips from Ft. Worth to Colorado, wheeling here at home, and a daily driver (75 miles round trip) on the highway.

ToledoDave

I agree with you for most part. But the only negitive feedback from spacers i can think of is premature Balljoint failure, wheel bearings and lug studs, due to cantilevering stress. Which 2 inches shouldnt deem a heavy impact as not much more then trans stress from bigger wheels. I dont dissagree it adds stress, but i think its a small impact. Just my $0.02.

mr72

I think you are disregarding dynamic forces during braking and steering. All of the steering components will wear earlier and have higher potential of breaking, and wear of those components leads to "death wobble". And you have greatly increased the leverage on the brakes by moving the wheel centerline further from the rotor surface which doesn't just change brake wear but also shear stress on the brake caliper bolts, sleeves/bushings, etc. And that also tremendously increases the wheel bearing stress during braking.

I'm not so much suggesting that there will be a high instance of catastrophic failure, but more suggesting that there will be a reasonably increased chance of catastrophic failure and notably reduced durability along with a constant decrease in performance. There really is no upside, besides someone's subjective idea of the appearance.

And by the way I made this same argument with people running the wrong offset wheels on Miatas just because they like that "wheels stick out" look and would say the same thing about the wire-wheels-sticking-out-from-your-monte-carlo fad of 15 years ago. All of this has the same negative effect on performance and durability for the misguided purpose of different appearance. IMHO.

I say leave it alone. Nothing wrong with a stock Wrangler.