Wheel spacer vibration frustration (Macht Schnell content)

grantmax wrote

The saga continues.

I had all four wheels ROAD FORCE balanced Wednesday morning. The vibration under 45mph is gone. The vibration at or around 72mph is still there.

Points of interest:
1. Wheels are not bent. Road force balancer confirmed.
2. Tires are not out of round. Road force balancer confirmed.
3. Hub is free of debris. Confirmed with my own eyes during the wheel balance.
4. I was very clear about how the wheels were to be torqued down and watched to ensure the lugs were tightened gradually and in the star pattern.

Fun fact - I noticed last night that at 72mph (or so) turning the wheel slightly can stop the vibration. A quick course correction within my lane or a longer sweeping curve seems to stop the shake. Sometimes.

Le sigh.

Couple of things to try:

• tighten the lugs fully, with the car in the air. Usually requires someone sit in the car and hold the brakes.
• try without. I've had bad spacers.
• anti seize the hub (NOT the mating surface, just the center hub)
• Try a known good set of wheels.
• check the hub for runout
• Rotate the rotor relative to the wheel. (are you on factory rotors? they are balanced, I've seen some aftermarket rotors that were not properly balanced)

I got my 12.5mm Turner spacers to stop vibrating. It was difficult, but it took a number of things, each of which made a slight difference, but only together fully eliminated the vibration. There are a finite number of things that can cause a vibration and you have to use a process of elimination to figure it out. As you've found, these cars are VERY sensitive.

Good luck - I *HATE* vibrations.

Macht Schnell as a company pisses me off. Their "engineers" made spacers that don't fit and created a huge safety liability for anyone who put them on their car and completely failed to even try notifying those who spent a lot of real money on their shoddy products. Stay FAR away from this company.

OP said the issue was corrected by MS swapping out a set of spacers, but we never got to see what the issue was.

Considering all the leg work the OP did to try and fix the problem, I would bet with 99% certainty that the spacers were machined incorrectly.

I have a set of spacers that "appear" to be identical to the MS ones (I'm sure many are made by the same manufacturer) and I had a slight vibration as well at speed. After measuring the CB of the spacer it measured to about 72.40 mm and not the 72.56 that the BMW CB is. Now this is such a small variance but would exacerbate at speed causing a shimmy.

ILSMKU wrote

Ive had MS spacers in 15/12/10 and they all vibrated. I have turner 15MM up front now and they vibrate too. My wheels are road force balanced and mine were installed with no load on my front tires.

As far as Im concerned, THEY ALL DO THIS.

What you need is a new set of rims with the offset you really want.


Thats my .2 cents.

+1

I've had 3 different companies (MS, Turner, Rogue) and they have all had some degree of vibration more than without spacers. Spacers are a last resort. I refuse to use spacers on the front end now. Rear can be OK with good wheel balance since you don't have to feel it through the steering wheel.

smmmurf wrote

+1

I've had 3 different companies (MS, Turner, Rogue) and they have all had some degree of vibration more than without spacers. Spacers are a last resort. I refuse to use spacers on the front end now. Rear can be OK with good wheel balance since you don't have to feel it through the steering wheel.

Because you can't feel it doesn't make it any safer!

These spacers just don't have the chamfering done properly.

The only fool proof way to do spacers is via a stud conversion and flat non hubcentric spacers. I'd stay away from the other ones unless trial and error and sketchy vibrations are your thing.

This is common when a control arm bushing has failed. You will get a resonating effect which causes vibration and turning the wheel slightly will load the loose/failed bushing and smooth the vibe out.

grantmax wrote

The saga continues.


Fun fact - I noticed last night that at 72mph (or so) turning the wheel slightly can stop the vibration. A quick course correction within my lane or a longer sweeping curve seems to stop the shake. Sometimes.

Le sigh.

VCP wrote

This is common when a control arm bushing has failed. You will get a resonating effect which causes vibration and turning the wheel slightly will load the loose/failed bushing and smooth the vibe out.

You're absolutely right that a busted FCAB can do that since it would then only have two solid joints on the arm plus 1 join that wiggles around a ton inside the bushing hole. Oddly enough, when I had this exact problem on my E46 years ago, it was incredibly noticeable and the wildly vibrated upon hard braking. During straight line driving it was negated somehow. Also while going over small bumps and reflectors/driveway entrances etc, the suspension would make audible knocking noises.

This problem above though is isolated to the spacers.

What is happening above is that the left front and right front can phase in an out of being crooked in sync with each other. That's why on highway drives, with two misaligned spacers, you can feel little to none and 4 minutes later your watch is trying to vibrate itself off your wrist.

Edward wrote

Because you can't feel it doesn't make it any safer!

These spacers just don't have the chamfering done properly.

The only fool proof way to do spacers is via a stud conversion and flat non hubcentric spacers. I'd stay away from the other ones unless trial and error and sketchy vibrations are your thing.

Are you really advising people to use non-hubcentric spacers... And rely on lug-centric install? Bad advice IMO. Properly designed hub-centric spacers work great. I should clarify that I do use non-hubcentric 5mm spacers but they are thin enough to allow the wheel to still interface with the hub to remain hub-centric. The only problem that I have ever had is with 10mm spacers combined with certain wheels that don't have sufficient chamfer at the hub (for a 10mm spacer). I always use Turner Motorsports spacers. Not of fan of MS stuff. I have run spacers without issue on dozens of wheels on my M3. Most people with spacer problems either install them incorrectly, don't hunter road force balance their tires or buy cheap spacers.

slicer wrote

Are you really advising people to use non-hubcentric spacers... And rely on lug-centric install? Bad advice IMO. Properly designed hub-centric spacers work great. I should clarify that I do use non-hubcentric 5mm spacers but they are thin enough to allow the wheel to still interface with the hub to remain hub-centric. The only problem that I have ever had is with 10mm spacers and certain wheels that don't have sufficient chamfer at the hub. I always use Turner Motorsports spacers. Not of fan of MS stuff. I have run spacers without issue on dozens of wheels on my M3. Most people with spacer problems either install them incorrectly, don't hunter road force balance their tires or buy cheap spacers.

Hold on Slicer..... I meant to say stud conversion where you use lug nuts instead of lug bolts. A stud conversion is the safest and most legitimate way to use spacers of any size. This is why BMW did this for the M3 GTS.

Edward wrote

Hold on Slicer..... I meant to say stud conversion where you use lug nuts instead of lug bolts. A stud conversion is the safest and most legitimate way to use spacers of any size. This is why BMW did this for the M3 GTS.

I'm still not following you.... I'm on board with the stud conversion. I however still think hubcentric spacers are best with or without the stud conversion. Are you just trying to say that you recommend studs with spacers?

Edward wrote

Because you can't feel it doesn't make it any safer!

These spacers just don't have the chamfering done properly.

The only fool proof way to do spacers is via a stud conversion and flat non hubcentric spacers. I'd stay away from the other ones unless trial and error and sketchy vibrations are your thing.

I wouldn't run spacers on the front ever again, but I did recently run spacers on the rear without issue when I got a flat tire to install a narrower spare wheels/tires to crawl home

Finally had a use for my Macht Schnell spacers

Spacer are crap to be honest, I used to buy spacers for my wheels because I want to have a flush look, but ended up with the vibration, it is not from the balancing for sure. Just throw the spacers into garbage and get some wheels with the right offset. If you still have vibration without the spacers, get an alignment check. SPACERS = Vibration IMO.

Edward wrote

Hold on Slicer..... I meant to say stud conversion where you use lug nuts instead of lug bolts. A stud conversion is the safest and most legitimate way to use spacers of any size. This is why BMW did this for the M3 GTS.

yes, if a stud conversion made the wheels lug centric, but have you done a stud conversion?? The studs are small and thin and you still need the wheel hub for hub centric mounting

NELSON.MLGB wrote

Spacer are crap to be honest, I used to buy spacers for my wheels because I want to have a flush look, but ended up with the vibration, it is not from the balancing for sure. Just throw the spacers into garbage and get some wheels with the right offset. If you still have vibration without the spacers, get an alignment check. SPACERS = Vibration IMO.

I wouldn't bother with spacers if BMW would just make the ZCP wheels wider. That's the only wheel that should be run on this car.

s85e90 wrote

OP said the issue was corrected by MS swapping out a set of spacers, but we never got to see what the issue was.

Considering all the leg work the OP did to try and fix the problem, I would bet with 99% certainty that the spacers were machined incorrectly.

I have a set of spacers that "appear" to be identical to the MS ones (I'm sure many are made by the same manufacturer) and I had a slight vibration as well at speed. After measuring the CB of the spacer it measured to about 72.40 mm and not the 72.56 that the BMW CB is. Now this is such a small variance but would exacerbate at speed causing a shimmy.

Interestingly enough, the issue had to due with an "older version" of MS spacers. Specifically, the old version had chamfering to aid in the transition of the horizontal to the vertical portion of the spacer. This chamfering simply does not allow for some wheels to sit flush on the hub. As Edward pointed out, this is bad news. The "new version" has a near right angle transition thereby eliminating the problem entirely.

VCP wrote

This is common when a control arm bushing has failed. You will get a resonating effect which causes vibration and turning the wheel slightly will load the loose/failed bushing and smooth the vibe out.

Hmmmmm. I have a feeling that the slight turning is a clue in this mess. It is certainly taking load off the vibrating component allowing the ride to settle. I suspect a failed FCAB bushing would expose itself in ways other than vibrations at high speed.

It is one of the symptoms, and it can happen at highway speeds only. I have my own BMW repair shop(15 years and 25 in the trade) and have experienced this countless times. I was just making sure you eliminate all possibilities. Good luck with this.

grantmax wrote

Hmmmmm. I have a feeling that the slight turning is a clue in this mess. It is certainly taking load off the vibrating component allowing the ride to settle. I suspect a failed FCAB bushing would expose itself in ways other than vibrations at high speed.

grantmax wrote

Hmmmmm. I have a feeling that the slight turning is a clue in this mess. It is certainly taking load off the vibrating component allowing the ride to settle. I suspect a failed FCAB bushing would expose itself in ways other than vibrations at high speed.

yes, jack up the wheels and put a pry bar on where the wheel/suspesnion points. You should be able to move it slightly; anything more would indicate worn bushings.

Edward wrote

Hold on Slicer..... I meant to say stud conversion where you use lug nuts instead of lug bolts. A stud conversion is the safest and most legitimate way to use spacers of any size. This is why BMW did this for the M3 GTS.

Studs are no safer than wheel bolts. In fact, they're often times less safe, since you can't easily check the torque of the stud to wheel. They just make frequently changed wheels easier, and holds the spacer on during those changes.

Installing studs doesn't automatically make a wheel lugcentric - that takes a special brand of stupidity

grantmax wrote

I wouldn't bother with spacers if BMW would just make the ZCP wheels wider. That's the only wheel that should be run on this car.

put wider tires, factory 265 tires stretch too much. I have 275 PSS on them, and they look much better on the car, imagine if you put 285 or 295 tires, it will be perfect and with 0 rubbing. The thing is that rear spacers will not cause you wheel vibration. Just buy two rear wheels and put in the front, it will stay flush with the fender and gives you that deep concavity.

slicer wrote

I'm still not following you.... I'm on board with the stud conversion. I however still think hubcentric spacers are best with or without the stud conversion. Are you just trying to say that you recommend studs with spacers?

Sorry,

clarity was not my strong suit yesterday. Yes, what you are saying is what I am saying. Of course you need a hub of some sort for the wheel to sit on whether you're using studs or not.

Edward wrote

Sorry,

clarity was not my strong suit yesterday. Yes, what you are saying is what I am saying. Of course you need a hub of some sort for the wheel to sit on whether you're using studs or not.

Cool, I agree that spacers work far better with studs.