lower control arm

[Petrified.Rabbit]

it "shouldn't" the alignment adjustments are in the top of the spindle (the two bolts for the strut). But there is some play in the ball joint just a little, it would probably stay in the green, but if you had the car aligned to the mostly worn out ball joint at some point, then putting in the good ball joint will "shift" the spindle back to were it was..

I always get angry when my friends (or I) pay for an alignment and are told something is worn out.. because once they move the suspension so that your car drives straight with the worn out piece, when you replace it, the alignment will be off, whereas if you just replaced the worn out piece, it was the "adjustment" the suspension needed.

but as a proper precaution, if you remove, replace or loosen any of the three points on the spindle, you should check your alignment. Generally these three points are the ball joint, strut mount, and tie rod end. That doesn't mean if you know what you ware doing and put it back in the same place that you can't skip the alignment. BUT for the sakes of the forum readers...

[NYChevoo]

The reason I posted that was because back around when my car had about 80K on her my left side lower control arm bushing went bad. My local repair shop got a replacement lower control arm and installed it. My car drove straight before the replacement. The only reason I noticed it was because of some slight "clanking" noise when I hit a bump. After they installed the part I asked them if I needed an alignment they told me no because no adjustments had been made to the front end. After the new part was installed my car still tracked straight. I've had it aligned since with the purchase of new tires (3rd set) and now at 115K almost 116K.