Budgiting for a set of Koni FSDs. Will I need an alignment after the install?

 

a alignment is not needed . Unless you change the height of your car or add camber plates or such up front.

 

I have the vehicle aligned after doing any suspension work. An alignment is way cheaper than new tires!

 

Whenever I change suspension components I drive it for a couple hundred miles to settle things and then have the alignment checked and/or corrected as needed. Like the man said... Cheaper than new tires.

 

MY 2007 Cooper has 235,400 miles on it. I purchased it new off the dealer's lot in December 2007. It's had new tires a few times and two sets of shocks. I have never had any "strange" or atypical tire wear and am still running on the original alignment. I don't know if I'm really good at dodging potholes or if I'm just lucky.

 

Good. I waited 12 years for someone to answer this burning question. NAM is just great.

 

When I replaced the OE LCA bushings with Powerflex I rejected the mechanic's advice to have an alignment. Big mistake.

 

Before replacing worn LCA bushings,
the front toe can be all over the place and
give inconsistent measurements.
Great reason to check and adjust the toe
after replacing them, and while you’re
doing that, no reason not to check the
rest of the alignment parameters.

 

I replaced failed strut bearing in my other car (not MINI). Before I started I used laser held against each wheel & projected toe-in against garage wall. Checked same way after my repair & there was no change.

On my repair there was no adjustment for camber & I did not have to loosen tie rod ends.

 

ALWAYS a good practice to get the alignment checked after any suspension work.

 

Or after every 17th pothole.
Get some simple tools and do it yourself
once or twice a year just for piece of mind.

 

With struts, I would say it is not necessary as there is nothing about the strut assembly that is adjustable in an alignment. Now, this changes if you put adjustable camber/caster plates in the car, but using stock mounts nothing should change. As always, watch how your tires wear at the edges and if they are wearing unevenly then you have an issue.

BTW, I have replaced both sets of tie rods before and because I measured accurately and kept them the same length, it did not need an alignment. I had one done anyways and the tech took 5 minutes, moved one adjuster sleeve half a turn and promptly charged me $60.

I also developed my "tape and datum" method of poor boy tie rod end replacement. If the car has a bad outer, I measure 10 inches from the center of the outer tie rod stud to a point on the inner tie rod and put a piece of masking tape around the inner. I then remeasure and mark the exact point that is 10 inches from the outer stud on my piece of tape. I now know exactly where to put the outer tie rod end. Why not just count the number of turns on the old versus new? Different manufacturers make their tie rod ends differently and some may have a longer threaded section than others. Doing the tape and datum method eliminates the issues caused by this possibility and sets the alignment back close enough to the old setup that the car will drive just fine, especially if you don't have money for an alignment. Most of the time a car goes out of alignment due to worn parts. Replace those parts without disturbing the alignment settings and the vehicle should be back in line again. Of course, YMMV...