If you still have a vehicle that is under warranty, you may be interested in making some modifications to it for many different reasons. Warranties can be extremely valuable as they can save you thousands of dollars if anything were to go wrong with the car. As a result, you generally do not want to do anything to your vehicle that would void that warranty.
Do wheel spacers void a warranty? Fortunately, wheel spacers will usually not void your vehicle’s warranty. Some warranty companies may try to blame any modifications you make, but unless they can prove your wheel spacers are the culprit, you are protected by law. It is important to buy high-quality wheel spacers to ensure your vehicle’s safety.
Oftentimes the two things that can void your warranty are not getting the car serviced when it needs to be and making modifications to your car. Car manufacturers do not want to pay for your vehicle’s repairs if they can prove that you have done something to your car that has made it fail. This could be neglect of maintenance or putting on other components that led to a failure.
How Do Wheel Spacers Affect The Warranty?
Warranties are a nice addition to a vehicle. Some people will buy a certain brand of a car solely off of the warranty that they offer on their cars. Many warranties are good for between 2-5 years, and some are good for up to 10 years or 100,000 miles. During the time of the warranty, certain systems and components are covered. This means that if these covered items were to break or fail, they can be replaced for free.
This can end up saving a customer thousands of dollars in case of something major goes out. Even if smaller, cheaper components were to fail you are still avoiding the cost of those through your warranty. Even in an extremely reliable vehicle, that warranty can offer a lot of peace of mind for car owners. Certain things can affect your warranty though. If you are found in violation of certain terms and conditions, then you may be denied coverage through your warranty.
So, how exactly do wheel spacers affect your warranty? Fortunately, many people before us have placed wheel spacers and other modifications on their cars and battled warranty companies to get coverage. This has resulted in a law being made in the US that prevents warranties from being voided from making modifications to your vehicle unless they can prove that whatever you have done to your vehicle caused the damage.
This means that you can change out, add, or remove components and still be covered under warranty as long as these components are not damaging components that you would try to warranty. The same goes for wheel spacers. This does not necessarily mean that you will have an easy time getting your warranty to cover damages though.
Fortunately, the law is on your side though and it will be up to the warranty company to prove that any damages were caused by your modifications. So, you may have to go back and forth with the warranty company but unless they can prove that your wheel spacers caused the damage, then they will have to cover the repairs.
So, you can put wheel spacers on your vehicle without needing to worry about the warranty. As long as you buy high-quality wheel spacers, you should not have to worry about them damaging other components on your car and voiding your warranty. The only exception to this would be if your wheel spacers caused your wheel bearings to fail very prematurely. There is a chance that this blame would be thrown directly at your wheel spacers and that the warranty company would try hard not to cover the repair.
What To Do If Your Spacers Have Voided Your Warranty
So, what happens if your wheel spacers have voided your warranty? This would mean that the warranty company has decided that whatever damages your vehicle has experienced were a direct result of your wheel spacers. Is there anything that you can do? There are some things that you can try if this happens to you.
First off, you can contest the warranty company’s decision. If you can discredit the evidence that they are using to prove that your wheel spacers are the problem, then you may be able to get your vehicle’s repairs covered by the warranty. There will likely be a lot of going back and forth before a decision is finally made but by contesting their evidence, you may be able to get them to pay for your repairs.
If the warranty will still not cover the repairs, then you have no choice but to take care of it yourself. This means that you will either have to pay a mechanic to repair whatever was damaged, or you will need to perform the repairs yourself. Fortunately, damages that are a result of wheel spacers are generally relatively inexpensive repairs. This generally consists of replacing wheel bearings or replacing ball joints. If you are paying for the repairs yourself, you can also upgrade your ball joint to a more heavy-duty one so it does not fail so prematurely in the future.
So, if your vehicle breaks down and your warranty is voided as a result of your wheel spacers, then those are your options. You can either pay for the repairs, do them yourself, or contest the warranties decision. What you do is entirely up to you.
Other Car Add-ons That Accompany Spacers That May Void A Warranty
So, what components will void a car’s warranty? This question is extremely difficult to answer. All damages on covered components are always covered unless the warranty company can prove that whatever modifications that you made caused the damage. As a result, there are a lot of different components that you can replace that can void a warranty.
This could include power modifications such as turbos, superchargers, bigger injectors, programmers, etc. If your engine were to get damaged with these modifications installed, your warranty company will likely not cover the repairs as damage could likely be the result of those modifications. Power modifications can lead to some of the most expensive repairs.
Additionally, there are a lot of different chassis modifications that can void a warranty. These could be wheel spacers like we have talked about, but they also could be things like a lift kit, a leveling kit, aftermarket suspension, etc. If the warranty company can prove that these modifications caused damage, then your warranty will be voided.
Lastly, putting cheap off-brand parts on your car can void your car’s warranty. If your car was meant to have genuine OEM parts on it, and they find that you have installed off-brand parts because they were cheaper, then you may not be able to get the warranty to cover your repairs. That is why if you have a car under warranty, you will want to make sure that you always use genuine OEM parts for all repairs and maintenance.
How To Avoid Problems Caused By Wheel Spacers So You Don’t Need To Use Your Warranty
So, what can you do to make sure that your wheel spacers do not void your warranty? The first and most important thing is that you buy high-quality wheel spacers. Cheap poorly made wheel spacers can cause you all sorts of problems. They can cause extreme stress on chassis components and the wheel spacers themselves can even fail while driving. This can result in damage to a wide variety of different components which, if the warranty company can blame it on your wheel spacers, will not be covered.
That is why buying only high-quality name-brand wheel spacers is so important. These are the ones that will last the longest and will cause the least damage to your vehicle. Also, purchasing a hub-centric wheel spacer is critical to reducing the amount of stress added to your vehicle. So, what else can you do to prevent wheel spacer problems?
The second thing that you can do is buy shorter wheel spacers. If you do not need two-inch wheel spacers to fit the tires that you want, then get some shorter wheel spacers. If 1 inch is not enough, try 1.5-inch wheel spacers. The shorter the wheel spacers are, the less damage they can cause to your vehicle. This means it will be far less likely for components to fail as a result of your wheel spacers. It is best to get the smallest wheel spacers that you can get to reach whatever specific goal you have. This will make it so that you don’t need to use your warranty as often.
Related Questions
Do wheel spacers affect the turning radius? Wheel spacers do affect the turning radius of a car, but the effects are minimal. Wheel spacers will widen a car’s stance which creates a wider turn. The larger the spacer you use, the more the turning radius will be affected. But even with two or three-inch spacers (considered to be on the larger end), the change is still unnoticeable to most. Visit the article by clicking here.
Can you off-road with wheel spacers? You can safely off-road with wheel spacers as long as the ones you install are of high quality. Do keep in mind that wheel spacers can potentially add some stress to the rest of the chassis, so be sure you know what you’re doing while you are off-roading with wheel spacers. Click here to get access to the full article.
So, do wheel spacers reduce tow capacity? Wheel spacers will have an impact on your towing capacity. It is difficult to determine how much it will affect towing, but extending the wheels further from the body will always induce more stress on the chassis and reduce the total amount you can pull. View this article by clicking here.
