The Roadie wrote:because unless you neglect to torque things down, we don't tend to break studs. And rechecking torque RELIGIOUSLY is part of everybody's safety ritual.
3) That said, I've never been a fan of what I call wheel SHIMS, which are the thin (1/4" usually max) spacers that don't have their own second set of studs. These re-use the hubs original studs, and the technical issue is that they stretch the stud more than the designed distance for the same torque. 1/2" additional thread to handle 1/2" shims would make this effect even worse.
Yep, that's how I broke 2 studs on the hub. I neglected to do the 50-100 mile retorqueing after installation. But then last week I noticed one broken stud on my brother's Yukon and another one that felt like it was just about to go. Good thing it happened to me and not him, since he probably wouldn't have noticed until the wobble got really bad.
And some tire places will not work on vehicles that have only shims. My local place said it was ok if I had actual spacers as long as I signed a line on the invoice that said that I had aftermarket mods that could break and I was responsible. They said if I had shims then they would only work on them up to a certain thickness. I assume Discount wouldn't work with either one.
I also recall a story that someone had the 1.25" spacers that required grinding of the studs, didn't do it and bad things happened.