Lug Centric vs Hub Centric Wheels

There are two distinct types of wheels found on today’s cars and light trucks. There are Hub Centric wheels and there are Lug Centric wheels.

The most common wheels today are Hub Centric in design. This means the center hole of these wheels is the actual center bore of the wheel. These wheels can be properly mounted and accurately balanced using the standard cone system available with your Atlas Wheel Balancer.

However, a large number of today’s aftermarket wheels are what we call “Lug Centric” in design. This means that the center hole of the wheel is not the true center. Because of this, these wheels cannot be properly mounted and balanced using the standard cone system provided with your Atlas Wheel Balancer.

Often times, these lug centric wheels will appear to be mounted properly using the standard cone system.  However, this will result in either the wheel balancer continuing to “chase weights” or the wheel will continue to show signs of imbalance once it is put back onto the vehicle.

In order to properly balance these “lug centric” wheels, you will need to mount the wheel to the wheel balancer in the same fashion that it is mounted to the vehicle – by the lug bolt pattern.  Mounting these wheels to the wheel balancer using the lug bolt pattern mimics the way the wheels are mounted to the  vehicle and ensures proper balancing.

Proper mounting and balancing of these lug centric wheels requires the use of the Atlas Universal Adapter.