Are manual locking hubs required to use the ball joint spacers?
No, manual hubs are not required to use ball joint spacers. You may find that manual locking hubs will help to reduce wear and tear on the CV joints and boots if you have the Automatic Differential Disconnect (ADD) front axle. Why? With ADD, you have drive flanges on the front axle half shafts meaning the axles, CV joints and CV boots are spinning 100% of the time. With ADD, when you engage 4WD, an actuator in the front differential locks the the driver’s side axle to the differential to make the front axle operational. With manual hubs, you can unlock the hubs when you only need 2WD operation and thus those CV joints and boots will not be spinning.
