A8bil

Why the larger spacer in back? Any negative impact on handling? Audi must have made the rear track narrower for a reason.

r10apple

The wheels just really looked tucked on the care for some reason, and disproportionately so. As for the handling, it feels slightly different to me, but in reverse. I think I felt a bit more 'sure' in the car and its dynamics without the spacers than with, but that is at the extreme limits in handling on a public road which I really do not do other than as a quick test. Theoretically it should corner/handle better, but it's a landyacht--I have to ask myself why push it that hard...

A8bil

Yeah...I get your not pushing it approach...but I'm always surprised at how well my car holds the road with rear wheel steering. Its limits are always higher than I expect.

Any pictures of your wheel set up you can share?

r10apple

Sure--just took these...please keep in mind I do have Ghostlinks, so the car is about an inch lower than normal/factory...

DallasDave

Just finished putting spacers on my S8. I purchased a kit that included 15mm for the front and 20mm for the rear. They are slightly wider than I initially wanted, but I think they look just fine. The kit also included the longer wheel bolts. Here is a series of "before and after" pics:

Before



And after:




Same for the rears. Before...




And after...




A side benefit to the spacers is that there is now enough room to install my floating center caps (Audi logo'd, of course).

pcc125

For those with the spacers on both the front and rear, have you noticed any decrease in ride quality? Did it make steering heavier, especially at low speeds?
Are you not worried about increasing wear on the car's ball joint and suspension, as well as on the wheel bearing, which can reduce its life and increase rolling resistance? I have never used any spacers on any car I owned, but I am guessing with the size of the spacers you mentioned, there would not be any negative impact. They do look good though.

DallasDave

I've often wondered about that too. But, no, there is no difference in ride/handling/braking/etc. As far as stressing suspension components, how would this be any different than putting an aftermarket set of wheels on the car, assuming they had a different offset?

The spacers on my D4 S8 where only 10-12mm, so slightly narrower than these new ones. I had the D4 for almost five years and put over 80k miles on it without any issues.

sfelisio

Sorry guys, I do not understand if you have used double bolt spacers or long bolt version.
I had a very bad experience with longer bolt, so from my pow double bolt type is a must.


Double bolt version

Long bolt version

pcc125

What kind of bad experience did you have with the long bolt? Did the bolt break?

DallasDave

I'm using the long bolt version and have no experience with the other option. For those of you that are "anti spacers", this may help. During a visit to my local NTB this afternoon (a front end alignment), I got to chatting with the branch manager. I asked him directly, "wheel spacers...pro or con?" He told me that he has been using them for years on almost all of his vehicles. He has never had a problem and believes that as long as it's a modestly sized spacer, there will never be an issue. I went on to tell him that I am using 15mm/20mm frt/rear and asked if that is "modest". He smiled and said that they are.

Just thought I would share.