I'm looking at a second XK8. Great condition car but it has 19" wheels and 1 and a half inch spacers. Seller says gives better handling but I'n suspicious af anything non stock.

What's the consensus or the reason for such mods?

 

Done for looks. Very occasionally a car needs spacers to improve handling (Ferrari 348), but generally used to improve looks or to allow non-standard-offset wheels to clear brakes/suspension.

 

Be aware XK8/R's have hub centric wheels which means the rims are centered on and supported by the axle on the wheel hub and use flat lug nuts. Where most cars and aftermarket rims use lug centric wheels which means the rims are centered and supported by the cone shaped lug nuts.

There are hub centric spacers available and are OK to use as long as they are the correct size and are normally used for either aftermarket wheels to convert to lug centric or a different lug pattern or just for looks with stock wheels.

The thing to watch it for with spacers is..
1 - are they the correct hub size
2 - are they being used to fit aftermarket rims and if so are the correct lug nuts fitted for the rim used - flat or cone?
3 - With a 1 1/2" spacer, the length of the stock lug nut is not long enough so the spacers would have to have secondary lug nuts to attach the rims.

This all gets very complicated and I'm sure others will offer additional insite.

 

Wheels that stick out more tend to reduce the swing when cutting corners fast. The reason for this that the body of the car is more centered. You might feel the car is more stable and in control because you don't feel the swing as much.

However, there will be some understeer and less wheel slippage. Keep in mind, this is both from a physics perspective and experience driving different cars with different wheel setups over the years.

The only real way to tell is to test drive it and compare it to the stock Jag Premium. (There might be other factors like tire width and sidewall can make difference the assumption here is that all things being equal).

 

I have 1.5" hubcentric adapters in back. They make the car sit about 1/2" lower. No handling or driveability issues and improve he looks considerably.


There are Jag specific one with the right center bore/lip and SAE studs and cheap non hubcentric ones with 12X1.5mm studs. If he has the cheap ones, question his judgment.

 

Is it easy to do a wheel swap with another XK8 owner and go back to stock? It's a 2004 by the way with 85K miles.

 

Here is picture of front wheel

 

I'll probably get fire-bombed for this, but I wouldn't put spacers anywhere near a car of mine unless it was to correct for a non-standard offset on aftermarket wheels.

Manufacturers expend a lot of effort on suspension design; moving the wheel outwards means that the centre load line is no longer where the designer meant it to be. At the very least, it will put extra load on the hub bearings.

Just my 2c...

You should have no issues reverting to stock wheels.


Mike

 

Thanks and I agree. If I get this one then you probably will see an ad. for 19" rims. Those wheels go for about $200 each but where do you get a replacement or a stock wheel?

 

That is a common XK8 wheel, many went out with 19" wheels.

 

Are you saying these wheels might be original from the factory with spacers? Surely not.

 

I think this is a grey area. This is definitely a Jaguar wheel (Apollo, you can look it up). My car came with a set like these, actually. The funky part is that they are chrome. I could be wrong, but I believe the chrome was sold as a local US dealer option, not by Jaguar. Jaguar Apollos are normally painted silver. So there is an off chance the dealer or a subsequent owner added the spacers for whatever reason.

The short of it is that, assuming there is nothing funky with big brakes, or custom suspension parts, these wheels should fit the car without the spacers as they already are Jaguar wheels.

PS: You might also check tire sizes if they are what the factory specifies (check under the arm rest lid). Maybe the spacer has to with with accommodating a different tire...

 

Xk8s bound for the states needed to be able to have snow chains😕 That's why it high in the rear. Not sure if the offset was different.

 

So Loxmth, do you these 19 " Apollo wheels but with no spacers?

 

Yes those are stock Apollo wheels, the same as the ones on the last car you were looking at but they have been chromed. It was very Common for the dealers to have the Apollo's chromed as an add on when new.

My 03 came from CA with chrome Apollo's on it. These will be staggered 19" wheels, the fronts are 19X8X35 and the rear 19X9X33 so you cannot swap front to rear.

Very nice rims, best looking stock Jaguar rim IMHO although I think they look better in the stock silver instead of chrome.

 

Sorry gents, I didn't recognise them as OEM wheels, and I also prefer the 'natural' look over chrome. I'd still lose the spacers, though.

Mike

 

I bought this car, so the spacers are now mine and will soon be removed. The 19" rims however were the original with the vehicle. In 2004 they were a $1200 extra. What does the 19" give over the 18"? Just thinner tire for a bumpy ride?

Just driven her 100 miles home from Beverly Hills so more details tomorrow. Thanks for all the great input.

 

How do wheel spacers make the car sit lower?

 

The additional length of the lever arm. I didn't believe it either until I saw it happen on my car.

I bought spacers because I intend to have the factory 17's widened to 9.5" and run 285's in back to give it "stock appearing sleeper" look. moving the wheel centerline back in should take some of the additional load off the springs.

 

That doesn't really make sense - the springs support the body of the car and the load on the spring is dependent on what's pressing down on it, not what platform it's sitting on. The spring length will be the same whether the car is on wheels with spacers, without spacers, on bricks, etc, etc.
I suspect the spacers make the car look lower because the tyre is pushed out to sit under the wheelarch, rather than sitting inside the arch