Depending what kind of vehicle you own and which aftermarket wheels you bought, you may need Hub Centric Rings. But what the heck are they and do you REALLY need them? There is a lot of confusion out about how hub centric rings work and if they’re really needed. In this short article, we’re going to discuss hub bore, wheel bore, vibrations, and if you need a hub centric ring on your car.
In the past, there were a lot of vehicles that didn’t use a hub centric design for the wheels. This meant that the lug nuts were in charge of perfectly centering the wheel when it’s mounted to the vehicle. This puts an increased load on the lug nuts ultimately isn’t the best design out there. Today almost all vehicles use a hub centric design which adds a circular lip to the hub in-between all your lug nuts. The purpose of this circular lip on your hub is to center the wheel perfectly.
The hub centric design is fine for the stock wheels on your car which are designed to be used with the specific sized circular ring on your hub. Aftermarket wheels, however, are typically designed for a range of vehicles, all of which have different sized circular lips. If your vehicle has a 63.4mm hub bore and the wheels you bought have a 73.4mm bore, you’ll end up with a 5mm gap around the entire hub ring. This means your wheel will not be perfectly centered when it’s mounted to your vehicle. If your wheel isn’t perfectly centered, it can effectively be like having an oval-shaped wheel which will cause vibrations at high speed (40mph+).
The solution to this problem is a hub centric ring. The ring’s inner diameter will match your cars hub and the ring’s outer diameter will match your aftermarket wheel’s inner diameter. This fills the entire gap we mentioned which will allow your aftermarket wheel to be perfectly centered on your car which will eliminate the vibration we mentioned.
It should be noted that some aftermarket wheels don’t have this problem because they’re designed for one specific vehicle. Certain models of the Fifteen52 Turbomac, for example, are designed specifically for the Fiesta ST and don’t need hub centric rings as they are designed for that hub bore size. It should also be noted that hub centric rings won’t fix your vibration if your wheel is unbalanced or bent.
If you have any questions about what hub centric rings you need for your car, please do not hesitate to contact us. We can be reached by phone at 1.480.966.3040 or via email at [email protected].
