What are thoughts on wheel spacers?

[Grady]

Can I get your thoughts on wheels spacers for overloading and off-roading, I’m kinda up in the air with them because I heard that if you go to big, they can add stress to the suspension and drive train. But then others say there will be no problems. Do these create weak points?

I don't rock crawl, but just want a little wider stance on my truck.

 

[smritte]

There's considerable confusion regarding these. The biggest issue is forming an opinion with too little information.
Here's some suspension facts. Read all the way through and don't be discouraged.

1. When your suspension was designed, the weight was centered across the bearing's and steering.
2. Any variance will throw these things off center.
3. Moving the weight in or out changes how the weight is centered on the bearing. The bearings are actually two bearings, inner/outer with the weight balanced between them. Moving in or out changes this balance.
4. Steering is designed to "pivot" on a central spot. Moving the wheel in or out makes it "swing" not pivot.
5. Any change stresses ball joints, bearings, arms, knuckles and steering components.

What people don't (or cant) tell you is how much will cause an issue and will you even notice it. Something else no one will say is "were the spacers installed correctly?".
How much is bad? That depends. The general rule is to stay within an inch of stock. Stress wise, how big are your bearings to start with? People will say "go with more rim off-set and not spacers". They will state, "More rim off set wont cause issues". Sorry, its the same.

Solid axle has larger bearings and ball joints then independent. 4wd has bigger bearings then 2wd (mostly). Another factor is, how much bigger is your tire? That alone causes stress.

Back to the question, how much is bad? This includes rim off-set.
1.0-1.5 with stock tires, You probably wont notice the difference.
2.0-3.0, you may notice cornering is sluggish, especially high speed cornering. You should check steering and suspension components more often.

Add to that, taller and heavier tires will increase how often you check these. Heavier is more load (not centered anymore) and taller is more leverage.
All of that means you just need to check things more often. I check my suspension fairly regularly especially after a long trip.

Another issue is over torquing the bolts. Tighter is not better. People bring me broken studs once in a while. Almost always you can see the stud was over torqued. I cant remember if I've ever seen a failure from too loose or poor quality studs. What this means to me is, I would bet most of the bad press spacers get's is not installing them properly.

I buy my rims with about 1-1.5 more off-set to the outside. If I cant afford rims, I run spacers. I'm very OCD about how my vehicle's handle. I do notice a very slight difference but most wont notice it.

Buy the spacers, Put them on, Be happy.
Torque them properly and check the torque either 100 miles after or after the next dirt road. Remember, dirt roads are very hard on our vehicles. Just driving dirt roads means more maintenance than street driving. The more you mod, the more you maintain.