I just bought a sweet 2015 MCS with under 6000 miles on it about 200 miles from my home.. The car has 17/7 tentacle wheels with 205/45 Mich Pilot supers on it with 5mm spacers. The car runs and performs great however on the expressway I could feel a very,very slight vibration above 78 mph and would slightly increase above..no steering wheel shake but just enough to know it was there. I went by the local dealership here in Charleston and talked to their service advisor about it,,now this guy is a middle age guy who has a history in Mini racing and is currently racing his own car and has crew chiefed a professional mini team... Here is what he told me :

"Minis are "hub" centric to the wheel and are aligned perfectly by the small hub ring that aligns the wheel to fit. Hub centric is critical to front wheel cars. Anytime you add any size spacer the hub ring cannot alighn the wheel and it becomes aligned by the lugs or "lug" centric which lacks the precision of the hub ring." He went on to say " this may not be noticable at low speeds or in a Track scenario but as speed amplifies any small tolerance deviations it might very well be your issue" He recommended removing the 5mm spacer as it was not needed on a 7" wheel anyway.

Sounds logical..any one else ever heard this ?

 

Yes, with 2 caveats:

1. if you buy the right spacer, one with the same hub bore, you won't have an issue.
2. I don't know if tentacle wheels are OEM, but if they're not then it's entirely possible that the hub bore of the wheel changed.

 

Even with the spacer having the same hub bore nothing on the spacer aligns the wheel but the lugs..unless the spacer also has a raised hub ring ? which I dont believe is the case.

 

Sorry. You're correct. It was clear in my head that I was referencing a hubcentric spacer, but that probably didn't come across in my post. hubcentric spacers should provide you everything you need as long as they're the correct specs. Sounds like your PO just put a generic 5mm spacer on.

 

Ditch the wheel spacers. Your wheel bearings and hubs are not designed to take the additional loads that the hub spacers are inflicting on these parts. You're going to cause unnecessary wear and tear on these parts which will cost you a lot in the long run. Lug-centric mounting is BAD for the hubs, the bearings, the control arms, the power steering unit, and your alignment. The marginal difference in handling, which will be imperceptible to you, is not worth the long term damage that they will cause.

It appears that the Tentacle Wheels are factory MINI wheels, which are going to be hub-centric, i.e the hole in the middle of the wheel is the same size as the lip on the hub. So all you really need to do is ditch the 5mm spacers. Heck, you can probably get $50 for them on Craigslist and buy your MINI a tank of premium ethanol free gasoline.

 

I'm not sure I buy into all that extra wear and tear. I'm sure if you push the limits with it you're causing some damage. With "normal" spacers, <15mm IMO, I think you're fine. I just don't think 1/2" or less will cause any noticeable issues, especially compared to the people out there driving on super worn out suspension, awful alignments, and crappy tires.

 

I too agree with not worrying about any extra wear/tear if you keep it under 15mm. If you were running some sort of hooptie 25mm spacers with a 10" rim, then I would start to question the longevity of the bearings, but not a 5mm spacer.

If the rim is designed to be lug-centric, then it should be fine with the spacer. If it is a hub-centric rim and the spacer does not have a hub extension ring, then you will never get it perfectly centered...very true statement.

Now your vibration you are feeling may not have anything to do with the spacers and could simply be due to a poor balance job or a slightly out of round tire carcass. You could have the wheels re-balanced, possibly road-force balanced and see if it clears it up.

 

Stuart is very knowledgeable.

 

5mm is less than 1/4 inch, why are they there? I have 5mm spacers in front so that my wheels will clear the JCW brake upgrade, but if you have stock Mini wheels and no brake upgrade then are the spacers necessary? 5mm isn't enough to make a noticeable aesthetic difference.

A 5mm spacer doesn't cover the entire hub, so the aligning of the wheel to the hub won't be affected. I have Michelin PSS as well and never had a trace of vibration with my 5mm spacers, even at triple digits on the track.

I doubt the spacers are causing the problem, but try removing the spacers and see if your wheels still clear the brake calipers. If that's OK and you still have vibrations then have your tire balance and alignment checked.

 

A 5mm spacer should be fine. The hub lip is about 10mm, and with a 5mm spacer plenty of surface is left for the wheel to center on the hub. It will still be hubcentric.

You can put the question to rest if you remove the spacers and see if the vibration goes away — only takes a few minutes per wheel and easy to do yourself. I suspect the spacers are not the problem. A "very,very slight vibration above 78 mph" can be caused by a number of things, such as WhatV8 mentioned.

 

I was extremely impressed !! He took so much time with me , even came out and looked at the wheel...I didn't buy there but he was such a pro...gonna write the dealership on how professional he was !

 

Good advice..I wasn't aware of a "hub extention ring" on spacers

 

An extension ring can only exist on a spacer that is thick enough to completely cover the ring on the hub — that would be about 12mm and above for MINI.


But I disagree with the previous post. A 5mm spacer is thinner than the car's hub ring and therefore cannot have its own hub ring, but plenty of the ring remains exposed and the wheel will center perfectly on it.

I don't think the spacers are causing your vibration problem, but it's easy enough to test . Just remove them, quick and easy to do — unbolt the wheel, remove the spacer (it might even fall out by itself), bolt the wheel back on.

 

Get some 12mm spacers from outmotoring and the shaking will go away. 5mm don't come with centric ring. you'll need at least 12.

 

You don't know if the shaking will go away. The first step is to determine whether the problem is actually caused by the 5mm spacers. The way to test that (for free) is remove them, not go purchase another set of spacers. I suspect that the vibration is caused by something else, not the spacers.

5mm doesn't need a centric ring. The wheel can center perfectly using the ring on the actual hub.

 

Thanks rkw for taking the time to straighten this out...! will do ...

 

You're telling me moving the wheel 5mm out towards the edge of the hub doesn't matter? This guy is like the 5th person I've run into that's running 5mm and has shaking. All have just got the right size right quality spacers and the issue went away.
5mm spacers are pointless.

 

For those saying 5mm doesn't cover the hub ring, isn't there a chamfer on the wheels? If there is, then it's entirely possible that it's still not perfectly centered. If you have 5mm spacers and no shake then that's awesome, but someone else might not be so lucky.

The easiest thing to do is pull the spacer off and see if you still get the shakes. If they're gone, sell the spacers on Craigslist or Ebay. If the shake is still there, probably need a better balance on the tires. If he wants new spacers then that's another conversation. Unless he has a bbk or something where the spacer is needed, new spacers aren't the solution, though.

 

Pulled the spacers ...the front tire (215/45 17 ) cleared the strut by only 1/16" ...no vibration . but I also had the rebalance the wheels...so really don't know/

 

If they had to add any weights then your wheels were out of balance. Since you changed two things at once, the only way to truly figure it out is add the spacers back on and see if you get a shimmy!

 

True,, but I am w/o vibration and not that curious...

 

Glad to hear you shimmy/vibration is gone, regardless of whether it was the spacer or balance.