Last fall, I managed to destroy one of the plastic centering rings that performs the hubcentric function for the alloy wheels on the wife-units car.
She is now bugging me to get the summer tires back on her Versa and I have not done anything to start looking for a new plastic doinkus to put in the wheel center. What would happen if I omit this part?
The wheel could be slightly off-center without it, causing vibrations at high speed. Any wheel shop should be able to sell you new ones.
Nope, the wheel will center on the lug nuts. That's why they're on tapered or conical seats.
Don't worry about it. It'll work just fine. I've been running lugcentric wheels on my street and track cars for years. The hub centering ring is primarily for ease of installation. If you tighten up the lugs in a diagonal pattern like your daddy taught you, no worries.
You can get a full set of aluminum ones for less than $20 on eBay if you know the ID and OD you need.
As Keith noted, you don't NEED them on modern lug centric wheels, but I pretty much always run them anyway for peace of mind.
Keith Tanner wrote: Nope, the wheel will center on the lug nuts. That's why they're on tapered or conical seats. Don't worry about it. It'll work just fine. I've been running lugcentric wheels on my street and track cars for years. The hub centering ring is primarily for ease of installation. If you tighten up the lugs in a diagonal pattern like your daddy taught you, no worries.
This +1. Even on the old Elantra that had to have tires road forced to under 9lbs on the fronts or you'd get a vibration they were fine.
The aluminum ones might actually provide some support, but the plastic ones do nothing but aid in the installation.... and even then its easy to smash one.
OK then, sine the lug nuts are tapered, I should be good to go. I will probably order a new set but its not an item that I expected to find easy since I imagine that the combinations of ID and OD is endless. I do have the numbers from the other three rings.
This car sees the highway like maybe 4 times a year at most.
NOHOME wrote: OK then, sine the lug nuts are tapered, I should be good to go. I will probably order a new set but its not an item that I expected to find easy since I imagine that the combinations of ID and OD is endless. I do have the numbers from the other three rings. This car sees the highway like maybe 4 times a year at most.
I run the Kosei's with no rings and they see highway and auto-x's weekly.
The combos aren't as endless as you think. IIRC, 67.1 is used on most aftermarket wheels.
NOHOME wrote: What would happen if I omit this part?
Nothing. I never use them.
The wheel is centered by the lug nut tapers. The plastic thingy is just there to assist you in getting the lug nuts started.
I used plastic ones until I melted the fronts at a track day. Never got around to replacing them. I found that the only way the get the wheel centered well was to tighten the lugs as much as possible with the tire off the ground before setting it down for final torque. Just getting them slightly past finger tight wasn't enough to keep them centered with the weight of the car on them, but might have just been that set of wheels.
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