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Can you slide a piece of paper between the ring and your hub? Do you have to lube up the hub so that you can slide the ring on there because of the high tolerances? Of course not.

More tech here and here.

Enjoy.

There are two types of people in the world: those that believe that hubcentric rings are not necessary and those that are wrong.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

diamond racing wheels, for one, are lugcentric. fine. no rings, make sure they're torqued properly.

im not saying that you cant run lugcentric wheels on a car originally designed for hubcentric wheels.

i was simply pointing out that if you have hubcentric wheels on a car, there will be load transferred through the hub, not the studs/bolts alone.

edit: i do have to work (ie. force, jiggle) the stock wheels on and off of the rear hubs on my '03

How? There's no vertical load acting on the hub.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

eh.. you may be correct.. assuming all of your assumptions are correct...

No matter how the load is carried I sure have a much easier time getting the wheel on centered with hub rings rather than without.

--Kevin H.

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2003 WRX (again!)

You can put me in a third category: those who don't give a $%@!

P.S. Be careful showing officer qualities this time of year...

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Carl Fisher

Be Cool to the Pizza Dude:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=4651531

The hub centering rings are actually beneficial. I have mounted wheels with and without the rings and run an indicator on the wheel. I was trying to decide whether it was worth the hassel of prying the plastic (hub fusion) rings off (before getting aluminum rings).
The theory of using a conical nut to align the wheel has merit, but there is significantly more room for missalignment than many folks think. If properly engaged in the lug tightening pattern you can expect the wheel to be within 0.020" runout at the wheel. With close fitting rings that drops to about 0.008".
Even the conical hubs on the tire alignment machines don't always get the wheel centered. I have watched that exercise at HCH when checking my wheels for run out.
Now we shall hear debate as to whether the difference is ever noticeable. Quick some mechanical engineer out there figure the radial force generated by a 30 pound wheel and tire rotating 0.020" off center at 70 MPH.

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1998 BMW Z3
1987 BMW 325is
2000 BMW
1996 F250 Turbo Diesel