I recently ordered some 18" tires and wheels from Tirerack.com that I'm very happy with, but when I brought them to a body shop to install (the reason at a body shop was because I had some damage to my car I needed to get fixed and I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone) and when the guy at the body shop opened up the packaging he looked at the plastic "A rings" (which I guess are spacers) and goes "this is bulls**t, these are going to wear out in 5 miles of driving and your wheels and tires are going to shake and rattle all over the place." Obviously after spending $1600 I was very concerned about this so I had him hold off on installation and called Tirerack and the rep. seemed downright offended saying that the guy obviously doesn't know the business and that they sell 2,000 sets of these per week and to "imagine what would happen if the A rings didn't hold together for 2,000 orders per week." Does anyone have these spacers on their aftermarket wheels/tires? Has anyone had this experience? Any insight would be fantastic,,thank you

 

What kinda wheels you got?

 

I got a set of the 'A' rings with a new set of wheels for my 94 T-bird. This was also through Tire Rack. The hub diameter of the t-bird hubs did not match the inner diameter of the wheel center hole, so they are necessary to center the wheel on the spindle. The t-bird, and I imagine the Mustang require the hub-centric mounting provided by the rings, and do not rely on the wheel studs to center the wheel.

They seem to work just fine, even after rotating the tires after 5kmi. I was worried that the plastic would melt due to the brake heat, but they still look like new.

 

I'm just against spacers all together. It's a patch at best.
I know some people might not or never will have a problem, but I won't run them. I occasionally road race, autocross and drag race my Stang. I look at using spacers as a safety issue. If you use spacers... the spacers take up or reduce the amount of treads that go into the lug nut. Ford designed the studs to be a certain length for a reason. When you reduce the length via the spacer, you reduce the stress load capacity.

It's not worth the risk for me. Buy rims that fit JMO...

 

I think he's talking about the center plastic rings and not spacers for offset issues. Spacers are different than center plastic hub rings that are used to ensure that the wheel is centered on the axle before you tighten the lugs.These are normally used with some after aftermarket rims. They are simply there to keep the rim centered on the axle before the lugs are tightened.

 

http://www.tirerack.com/upgrade_gara...&autoYear=2005

click there and then go to the $194 Motegi black rims... those are what i ordered... i think that Fin is right, i think its the plastic things that keep them in place, maybe spacers wasn't the right term... so has anyone else had any issues or anything to say about these? should i be okay??

 

those are for centering the rim when they bolt it on. they are fine, some rims use those cuz they dont have self centering lugs. that guy dont know what he's talking about meng.

 

you will be fine. since there are so many cars/trucks with the same bolt pattern and different bore sizes they use these rings instead of making so many vehicle specific wheels and it cuts down on the cost. the first set of wheels i had on mine were like that, i had to use the hub rings because the wheels were made to fit more then just the mustang with the 5x4.5/5x114.3 the new wheels i have are made for the 5x4.5 and with the exact bore size needed so i did not need the hub rings with the new wheels.

just make sure when you take the wheels off or have someone rotate them they put them back on or even go ahead and replace them every tire rotation if you like there only a few bucks a set, most places like discount tire will replace them for free when you have them do the rotation

 

Those rings are also called "hubcentric rings" and it's quite normal for them to be plastic or aluminum. As pointed out in an above post, they are used to correct wheel offset issues. I've used them on my BMW's and had absolutely no problems after many years/miles.

That body shop guy should stick to body work...tirerack is telling you the right thing.

 

They are fine, once the lugs are tightened, there will be no stress at all on the centering piece.

Put some pics up when you get the wheels on.