(Near) Catastrophic failure of H&R Spacer Studs. Causes?
 

I run 15mm spacers up front and 20mm H&R spacers on my rears. Installed about a year ago with plenty of autocross and track days on them with no issues over the summer.

Decided to keep the 20mm on the rears during winter and had my winter tires installed by a local tire shop for convenience a few months back, although I do confess I did not go back to have them rechecked after install.

When turning left out of my house something felt funny at the right rear corner, a bit of a rotational noise like a tire was poorly balanced. I made it a few hundred meters to a grocery store parking lot and discovered 3 studs snapped clean off (one looks like its been gone for a while and rusty) and 2 freshly gone. Safe to say only one felt actually "tight" and the second remaining one was loose as well.

Perhaps most concerning is that a shop uninstalled all the spacers for me and it appears one of the broken studs is partially backed out of the spacer (the rusty, first stud to have broken) perhaps as a result of the shop's uninstalling them but certainly very concerning. No obvious damage to the spacer itself anywhere.

I was very lucky to not lose a wheel or have something happen on the highway. I will think twice about running these spacers again and certainly be the only one torquing anything down on my car in the future.

What would have caused the original (and other) studs to snap off like that, taking the lugs with them and everything? Is this a matter of stud failure or perhaps over or under torquing the lugs? Any suggestions?

Where did you get those wheels? The shitty condition of the lug seat tapers might have caused them to not stay tightened. Especially if they were just zipped on with an impact wrench by a shop and not cleaned before hand.

Or they might not have been tightened properly to begin with.

I can't tell from the pic but are those lug nuts the "acorn" style? That's what is needed with those wheels.

if you are going to be using spacers, which scare me... at least use a torque wrench to secure them. I looks like chronic and repeated over tighening.

wow, those studs broke so strangely. I've only ever seen them sheer clean across like they were cut. Not Gnawed off

h&r is likely to use high quality or at least rated studs with a specific torque value.
Most likely the shop used an impact gun.
I have never seen a non-performance shop use a torque wrench(only) on the studs, maybe after an impact gun, but the damage has already been done.

Also the seat of the lug nut isn't flat with all the rust on there. It's so rusted I can't even tell if it is a conical seat or a ball seat.
http://www.checkpoint-safety.com/sit...tor_types2.jpg

All of this^.

The closed ended lug nut is also a potential cause, since the stud may have bottomed out in one.

If I ever run extended studs, I will never use closed ended lug nuts because I cannot tell if the bottom of the lug nut has any contaminants or debris that may cause the threads to be damaged.

-alex

Property torquing spacers is kind of a pain the tookus. Install spacers, torque; install wheels, torque. Drive 100 miles, remove wheels, retorque spacers; install wheels, torque. 100 miles, retorque wheels.

What I see above was someone being lazy and not properly torquing even once, let alone 5 times.

Yes, I mean the OP being the lazy one.

DAMN I didn't catch that it was closed. That explains so much. I couldn't figure out how the wheel could be so rusted where the nut should have seated. They weren't seated since they bottomed out in the studs. Over torque against the closed end nut weakened the stud and then since the wheel wasn't tight a hard bump or a bit of shift in a turn sheared them right off.

Yeah, or OP was lucky with the summer wheels + closed lugs in that it was able to seat properly, but switching to winter wheels caused the stud to be too long and the lugs bottomed out.

I did this once, many many years ago, with Nismo studs and wheel spacers and improperly torqued lugs. The same effect (wobbly wheels) caused the studs to be sheared off in the same manner.

The shop may have used a torque wrench properly, but they probably did not check that the wheel itself was seated properly on the brake rotor.

-alex

That wheel looks cracked between 3 of the studs (the ones at the bottom of the photo). I'd toss it.


-Craig

Looks to me like the wheel bottomed out on the studs securing the spacer to the hub. Look at the stress marks in the wheel (circled in red). That could cause the stud failure you are seeing.


http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/b...ps3orghh5w.jpg

So is it safe to think that if you are going to run spacers over winter you should just run the OEM rim?

If OEM rim had been 16", 17" winter tires cost more and often much harder to find in (advisable for winters) narrower widths .. but there should be many cheap enough and good enough cast wheels out there .. or even of higher end if one can consider used ones from classifieds, to not use steelies and/or spacers.

They were the factory lugs used and have been used on these wheels for another season before with no problems. From what I've read the conical factory lugs work with these steel wheels, but perhaps the wheels are in such bad condition there is poor seating for the lugs anyway.

When the spacers were originally installed all of this was done (yes it was a PITA) but I had no problems with anything until the winters were put on. I think youre right though, if I wasn't lazy and had put the wheels on myself with a proper torque I think this could have been avoided one way or another

They are the factory lugs but the way the 20mm spacers are set up is such that there is not a difference between the stud length with the spacers installed. The fronts use extended studs while the back use an adapter style where the spacer actually has its own studs pressed in and bolts to the factory studs.


As it stands right now all the spacers have been taken off the car. I'll be buying new studs for the rears all around and have gotten myself longer lugs (steel gorilla acorn style) with almost double the thread length as factory lugs just in case there was any bottoming out. Spacers will be uninstalled again next winter and I think I've got to replace those steel wheels they are definitely tired :thumbdown:

Thanks for all the input guys

You know, there was a time where I did this. Then after doing it for like 3-4 times, every single time the nuts on the spacer were always correctly torqued. After 100miles, in between track sessions, after swapping winter/summer wheels. Im pretty sure that properly torqued nuts dont just randomly fall off or become loose. Properly torqued means torque wrench, not impact gun.

Back on to OP, 100% convinced the seat of the nuts in your wheels is so corrupted the nut came loose and allowed all the charge to be placed on the stud, which you know, breaks them. I think this would've happened on the stock studs as well.

This is what Im thinking as well. Perhaps between this and overtorquing with an impact gun by the shop, things went very wrong. I don't think its the spacers fault which is good.

I'm just thankful I noticed something driving two blocks to the store and not two days before on a major highway. Terrible to think what could have happened if a wheel decided to go on its own out on a highway.

Lesson learned. Thanks for the input guys.

As a followup to this thread, having decided I will replace all the studs on the spacer I've been thinking whether or not the integrity of the spacer itself has been compromised.

It probably took a lot of forces it wasn't designed to take having those studs/lugs shear right off. The spacer itself looks completely fine as do the holes for the lugs. I just wonder if its still safe to use it, if there is some defect that I cannot see?

If anybody has any ideas or experience with this it would be greatly appreciated.