C7 Audi A6 wheel spacer failure

[MyA6]

Alright I know this is an unpopular mod for most people, but the offset of the wheels I purchased were off by a mm or two. So I went ahead and bought 12mm spacers for the front and 15mm for the rear (unfortunately purchasing new wheels with the correct offset and fitment I was looking for is just not in the budget.)

I proceeded to install the front and rear, cleaning the surfaces of the rotors before installing. The kit I received came with the extended lug bolts needed, which were 14x1.5 and 40 mm for the front and 43mm for the rear. Everything seamed to go on smoothly. I torqued all the wheel studs to 95 ft-lbs as directed by the manufacturer, and then proceeded to drive off.

I was on normal streets, drove just fine. Got the car on to the freeway, and got the car well over freeway speeds and no noticeable vibrations or shudders. Went back to street driving on a road with some more bumps and curves, and then I felt the shaking and vibrations and hearing the noises of my wheels wanting to come off. I get out of my car to check the wheels and to my surprise checking all of the bolts, they were all loose, the fronts more so than the rear.

So I get the car home having to stop and retighten the wheels every 3-4 blocks and pull the wheels off, to find out the front spacer lips had completely broken off from the hub. The rear ones had stayed in tact but still came loose, but not as noticeable as the front.

I'm curious if anyone knows if there was some incorrect installation methods? Or were they the fault of the spacers or wheels I am using. This is a list of all of the parts I used with specs for all of them

Wheels: Voxx Danza wheels 20x8.5 et 32
Spacers and Bolts: RDCobra91 14x1.5 40&43mm conical bolts

Any help is appreciated. I also have pics and videos of what happened

[mintytoo]

Never heard of that brand of spacers, looks like some cheap set off of Amazon

from my phone

[MyA6]

Yes they were a cheap set, about 115 for it all. They were off eBay, generally good reviews. Was just hoping someone could clarify if this was just poor product or poor installation

[mintytoo]

If they are hub centric, and you installed to the right torque value, and your wheels take conical bolts, I don't see that you did anything wrong. I would not use cheap spacers

from my phone

[5000S]

I am not familiar with spacers but I wonder if you put them on wrong, maybe backwards. In no way they should have broken any lip or anything.
I wonder how far off you are with those wheels, and if you can do away with the spacers. I would try that. I suppose the caliper clearance is the thing.

[Audibot]

Are the extended bolts you got correct? I've seen this happen when ball or cone seat lug bolts are used where the other should be.

Spacer-wise, I like 42 Draft Designs, but that's just my preference.

[qcrazy]

I had this same issue on one of my Audi's ~12 years ago. IIRC, mine were 15mm spacers. The spacers where hub-centric, bolts were long enough, correct seat was used, and all of that other stuff. For whatever reason, after driving a while the front wheels would loosen up. I could tell they were loosening up as it would always start to vibrate. It didn't matter if it was my summers or my winters, same thing. I fought it for months and could never figure anything out. Installed studs and never had an issue again.

I had used spacers on other vehicles without issue, but for some reason this car didn't like them. I haven't bothered to use them since. Obligatory pic of the problem child...
arBridge.jpg

[jcoleman_11]

Are you sure your aftermarket wheels are conical and not ballseat? Some aftermarket wheels, especially if tailored for VW/Audi, will have ball seat so that stock lug bolts can be used.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ItsLarryG]

It sounds like they were the wrong hub diameter and were tightened to torque, but we’re not flush because the ID was too small to fit over the hub. After driving the spacer stretched or broke and now the wheel is loose. I saw this once when I went to buy a set of spacers off someone from Craigslist, of course they played dumb and said they worked fine and never noticed the spacers were broke…

[MyA6]

That was one of the first things i thought, the wheels say on ECS that they require conical, and I can't find them on voxx's website as I believe they are discontinued, but I was skeptical knowing that the previous owner had these wheels on a Q7 with no issues. I'm curious if they do take ball seat

[bakes]

Some pics may help of the spacer and the lugs if you can share. Any time you swap wheels best practice is to check the lugs after a short drive to make sure they are tight but it doesn't sound at all like that is your problem.

[esemes]

these are the ECS version that have correct seating bolts - for oem wheels at least

ECS plates01.jpg

stupid close on the rear (-10mm via vcds)

ECS-spacers-01.jpg

S6-POKEY.jpg