New tyres and wheel spacers fitted, car drives badly

D

dan yeates

Active member
 New Forest, Hampshire
Hi,

Yesterday I fitted my recently refurbished wheels, along with my new Falken 453 tyres and spacers (15mm front and 20mm back). I’m not a fan of spacers, but the wheels were lost in the arches so I thought I’d give them a go.

The car looks superb and the tyres are incredibly grippy, I’m really pleased with it. However, it doesn’t drive very well at all! The wheel refurb company said they think one of the wheels needs rebalancing, there was a wobble through the steering wheel so I’ll ask them to get this done at the weekend. But in addition to this it tramlines and often pulls to one side and just feels very lively on the road. I was struggling to keep it in a straight line and felt I had to really grip the steering wheel hard.

So, what’s going on here? Is it a bad idea to fit spacers to the car? Will it upset the handling this much? Is it the new tyres? Will new non run flats make such a difference compared to old run flats? Or is it just a case of needing a geometry setup to correct all the alignments now the spacers are on?

I’d appreciate any help.

Dan
 
I have spacers on mine Dan - didn't have the effect you are describing, drives fine - I'd get a 4 wheel alignment done. Likely it has never had one... Assume the guys fitting the tyres balanced the wheels correctly too... ?
 
The M never came with run-flats mate. The Continental SportContact M3's (our stock tires) are not run-flats.

Different tires can have different levels of tramlining, my Yokohamas with 12.5mm spacers all around tramline A LOT for example. It's probably a combination of everything you mentioned. Tires, spacers, alignment and wheel balancing could all be factors in it i'm afraid.

Wait after the balancing to see if it improves although i think that it wont make much difference in tramlining but the wheel wobble should disappear. Then i'd try removing the spacers altogether and see if it makes things better, if you do this yourself it will cost you nothing too!
 
I have run 12mm hub centric spacers on the front of mine without problems. The wobble is likely to be the wheel balancing or a dodgy spacer if it was fine before. Easy to check which issue it is if you were to quickly whip of the spacers on the front and see if you still have a wobble. If you do its the wheel. If not the spacer.

As for the tram lining as Carol said would be worth getting a geometry check.

Edited: also ga41 is right some tyres are worse for tram lining than others
 
I no longer have the M, I now have a 3.0.

Yes, all good points. I'll certainly get the wheel rebalanced on Saturday. Whilst I'm there I'll try it with and without the spacers to see if it makes any difference - good idea.
 
Directional tyres doesn't help with tram lining , I would suggest a four wheel alignment should improve the situation .
 
I had falken 452's all round and had steering issues,read on the forum somewhere they need approx 500 miles to 'run them in' mine are great now :D
 
What wheels have you had fitted,or just your original wheels but with spacers?

Are you sure spacers have correct hub sizes?
 
Out of interest, if you have spacers, are they supplied balanced or do you need to align them to the wheel and balance the wheel and spacer together?
 
If you get decent hubcentric spacers they should be neutral and not affect wheel balancing.
 
paulb07 said:
I had falken 452's all round and had steering issues,read on the forum somewhere they need approx 500 miles to 'run them in' mine are great now :D
Click to expand...
This can be true. 1 set of tyres I had (not Falkens) were terrible at first, but after 500 miles I was in love. Oh the grip! My second set of very similar tyres were fine from day one. Go figure. YMMV, literally.
 
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