Centering RING FOR SOME WHEELS?

GTWaggin'

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Most 18" wheels from TireRack need a centering ring for mounting. The 19" Motegi 924 does not come with centering rings, just lugs. Is that a more stable wheel?
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Panda-R

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Are they already hubcentric? Then you don't need them.
 
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GTWaggin'

GTWaggin'

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My question showed my lack of knowledge of what hub rings are actually for. I should have simply done a search. Since I didn't know what hubcentric meant, I watched a You Tube that explained it.
 

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It really doesnt matter. If you dont use hubcentric rings then youll be mounted lugcentric. I've never used hubcentric rings.
 
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GTWaggin'

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The Discount Tire guy doesn't usually used them, using the lugs alone. Has had no problems.
 


EdG

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I've heard tire guys say they are not needed and others say they are. The most common issue without rings is that they rims might not be perfectly centered on the hub without a ring causing vibrations at certain speeds. I use them for my after market wheels just to be safe. I've been told they keep the wheel more stable/secure with spirited driving as it doesn't only use lug nuts to keep the rim in place but not sure how much that really matters.

I believe you would need a ring with an inner diameter of 64.1 mm for FK8. Outer diameter is determined by the wheel.
 

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I just bought the same wheels for a winter set up and tire rack told me they didn’t need hub centric rings??? I guess I’ll find ou when I mount them
 

Jotun

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I've heard tire guys say they are not needed and others say they are. The most common issue without rings is that they rims might not be perfectly centered on the hub without a ring causing vibrations at certain speeds. I use them for my after market wheels just to be safe. I've been told they keep the wheel more stable/secure with spirited driving as it doesn't only use lug nuts to keep the rim in place but not sure how much that really matters.

I believe you would need a ring with an inner diameter of 64.1 mm for FK8. Outer diameter is determined by the wheel.

I dont think a plastic ring(yes, a lot of them are plastic) is going to do much better than lug nuts torqued down at keeping a wheel rigid under "spirited driving". Its all for piece of mind.
 

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If centering rings were needed, the car would come with them.

Centering rings do NOT "perfectly" center your wheels. There is no such thing as "perfectly centered", only a limit to what you can measure. (edit: and if if perfectly centered, then your wheels would have to be 'perfectly' balanced, which they are not.)

Your lugs are as close to concentric with the bearing as any centering ring that you can buy for less than a few hundred dollars is going to be.
 

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I just recently bought hub centric rings for my aftermarket wheels, I didn't notice as vibrations at high speed with my wheels that are currently lugcentric. I will let you know if i notice a difference once I can get them on. Side note, no autozone or orileys I went to had any or even knew what I was talking about so I just ended up purchasing them off amazon. I needed a 64.1 inner diameter and 75mm outer.
 


MadMage

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I just recently bought hub centric rings for my aftermarket wheels, I didn't notice as vibrations at high speed with my wheels that are currently lugcentric. I will let you know if i notice a difference once I can get them on. Side note, no autozone or orileys I went to had any or even knew what I was talking about so I just ended up purchasing them off amazon. I needed a 64.1 inner diameter and 75mm outer.
Did you bother trying to rotate your wheels 2 lugs either direction? And did you get them dynamically balanced?
 

LampRod

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Did you bother trying to rotate your wheels 2 lugs either direction? And did you get them dynamically balanced?
No I didn't, just threw the wheels on, I purchased them used so they came balanced from the previous owner.
 

EdG

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If centering rings were needed, the car would come with them.
Cars don't come with hub rings because the wheels that come with the car are specifically designed for the car. The center of the wheel is matches ring on the hub that helps center the rim on the hub. After market wheels diameters are larger than most hub rings. If wheel internal diameters were smaller then ring on the hub, they couldn't be used (they want to maximize the cars that can use their rims).
 

MadMage

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No I didn't, just threw the wheels on, I purchased them used so they came balanced from the previous owner.
Did they tell you they actually had them balanced, or did they assume like you assumed they were balanced? (or did they know they were not balanced and it was one reason they were selling them?) If your wheels vibrate at high speed, then you have the symptom that the wheel is unbalanced and your solution is not to have the wheels balanced but instead you try a centering ring?

Get's your wheels balanced. And since it is a high speed issue, then you should get them dynamically balanced. If you don't won't to spend the money doing that, then at least rotate them a few lugs and try again. If you are lucky, then you will offset various imbalances in your wheel system and they will come close enough to being inertially concentric that you won't notice the issue.
Cars don't come with hub rings because the wheels that come with the car are specifically designed for the car. The center of the wheel is matches ring on the hub that helps center the rim on the hub. After market wheels diameters are larger than most hub rings. If wheel internal diameters were smaller then ring on the hub, they couldn't be used (they want to maximize the cars that can use their rims).
If that were the case, then the lugs would not have a self-centering features. The wheels would have flat surfaces for the lug nuts to mate to. But they don't. They have (all vehicles I know of) conical or spherical mating surfaces BECAUSE these are self-centering features.

This means that IF your lug nut circle center and the centering ring center are not concentric, your lug nuts will not seat correctly. If this lack of concentricity is significant enough, then your lug nuts will either; 1) deform your wheel to seat themselves, or 2) not seat properly which means they might loosen themselves (and fall off), or 3) deform the centering ring.

None of these things are desirable. You do not want to deform your wheel just so that the centering ring can supposedly center your wheel. You do not want your lug nuts to fall off. And if your centering ring deforms, then its useless.

Now to directly address your assumption that stock wheels come with "The center of the wheel is matches ring on the hub that helps center the rim on the hub." Again, what do you mean by matches? Your stock wheel hole diameter would need to match the hub diameter with a tolerance of about +0.0005" -0.0005" of an inch in order for it to be a centering feature. I guarantee you the tolerance on the center hole is not a thousandth of an inch. At a min it probably has a 0.005" or larger oversized hole. Which might not sound like a lot, but it's a loose clearance fit.

And I would be surprised if any 'centering ring' you buy is going to have similar tolerances on their diameters, and a concentricity of less than 10% of the diameter tolerance.

If you want to learn more about fitment, you can start here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_fit
 

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I know they are balanced because I experience no vibrations at high speed. The only reason I am getting the rings is to see if there is any difference. Right now there is just a lot of road noise but that comes from the tires. I haven't gone extremely fast yet, fastest ive gone is around 80mph. The only reason I found out about the rings is because a friend told me they are needed for after market wheels with differing bore sizes. Doing some research on other forums shows that many people never even consider the different sized hub bores and many auto stores not knowing about them, called and entered about 6 different stores only 1 knew what I was talking about. I have also seen some youtube videos that say the rings help with vibrations but I also feel like it could be from cheap aftermarket wheels. A high quality wheel will be less likely to vibrate(with proper balance) at high speed when being lugcentric but that is just a guess I have no real proof. Idk if any of this is helpful. Still waiting to install them results will be posted soon I hope.

edit: I doubt ill notice a difference since the wheels feel perfectly balance maybe it will matter at much higher speeds.
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