Alignment Required After Front or Rear Shock Chang

[chefwong]

Front hats have a smigen of play in the holt hole.
I suppose the rear can as well....

Anyhow, would you say a alignment is required when changing out the shocks.

I did my fronts last year. I did the aligment

At 350+ per tire, rubber ain't cheap.
But my alignment guy aint cheap either....

Planning to replace my rear shocks this spring. I can see oil leaking out of one.
It's due time.

Whaddya say. Alignment required or subjective

 

[WANG]

Depends on the platform. What is it?

 

[Zaedock]

What kind of vehicle?

Typically, if you change shocks, you do not need to. When you replace struts, you disturb the front end components to remove/change the strut, thus requiring an alignment.

 

[beast3300]

As prevously said, depends on platform. Something like a truck/van then no.

 

[chefwong]

bmw

 

[yonyon]

Assuming one of the more common BMWs with struts in the front and shocks in the back, replacement of fronts would require an alignment afterwards, yes.

Why all the secrecy about what the car is?

Edit:
Keep in mind that for every shop that is properly equipped and willing to do a wheel alignment correctly on your BMW there at least a dozen shops that will do a half-assed job of it.

 

[chefwong]

x5. Rear shock - air springs.

And yes. My tire, alignment guy is a good 1.5-2 hrs drive.
He's worth it.

If I have extra play money, I'll go there to have the cars tweaked. There's nothing better than a perfectly aligned car..

 

[Hokiefyd]

A friend of ours had a 2000 X5. A rear shock change does not require an alignment, but as others said, a front strut change would require one. They had the 4.4L V-8 with 19" or 20" OEM wheels. The tires were NOT cheap for that vehicle, and theirs went through them every 15-20k miles or so.

 

[PandaBear]

shocks, probably not as they are not part of the connection of the geometry, they just dampen and support.

struts, definitely yes as the old vs new one may have different length or angle / bent that will throw off the original alignment.

 

[chefwong]

Just started doing a long laundry list of parts to touch.
Oh boy, those rear subframe bushings look like a fun day......if you don't have the special tool