I'm helping a friend with a spacer question. He ordered 17mm spacers from Porsche and only got the rears. Should the fronts have been ordered also? We were thinking they would be set of four.

 

Almost always spacers are ordered by pairs only. Unless he specified he wanted all four, he should not have expected them. I always assume they are wanted by the pair unless told otherwise.

 

Hmm.. I spoke to my dealer about these as well. They recommended 5mm rear only. So far I plan on keeping my wheels so I wanted them to get lined up closer to the edge of the fender. Do the spacers require new aligment settings and will they effect handling?

 

Spacers are used to compensate for offset differences in various wheels. For example the offsets for the front wheels on the C2 and C4 are usually the same. On the rear since the C4 is a "widebody" many wheels designed for the narrowbody C2 need spacers to push them out if they are going to be used on the C4. The Sport Design 19" Porsche wheel only comes in one offset for the rear - 67mm which is fine for a C2. You can use it on the C4 but with 17mm spacers to effectively get to the C4 stock offset of 51mm.

 

I definitely DON'T recommend getting spacers larger than 5mm. I had 18mm spacers on mine with the GT3 wheels originally. It affected the handling characteristics of the car in such a way that the car suddenly felt a bit "loose" at the handling limits. I eventually ended up selling the GT3 rears for the GT3 RS rears which didn't need those spacers and suddenly the car felt much more planted. So, bottom line is, I DON'T recommend getting those spacers. Go with wheels with the proper offset instead.