Do Sway Bar Links Affect Alignment?: [The Truth & Beyond]

Sway bars are the unsung protectors of your car. While it may seem insignificant at first, you can’t enjoy your rides without them. You might get concerned with whether your car’s alignment is connected with sway bars or not.

So, do sway bar links affect alignment?

The simple answer is no, your sway bar links do not affect your car’s alignment. While the sway bar is responsible for handling and control, it does not affect alignment. Even in most cases, it does not affect car tire wear and all. However, you will notice some issues if your sway bar links go bad.

Although they don’t affect alignment, you still need to know about them. Because sway bars links are actually pretty important to get the best output from your car.

So, who’s stopping you from learning more about them?

The Role of Sway Bars in Your Car

You might think that “are sway bar links important” without knowing their role. That’s why getting to know them is a gateway to fun drives. While this may seem dull to you but I assure you, it’ll help you to understand your car!

So, What do sway bar links do?

The sway bar stabilizes and supports your axles on both ends to prevent rolling over. When your car begins to lean or sway, it helps to regain stability. That’s why it’s also called a stabilizer or anti-roll bar.

Source: Nengun

Now, the main purpose of the sway bar is to keep your car safe from accidents. Whether it’s on a noisy road or risky turns, you won’t be affected too much. Given that you have good sway bar links.

This was all about the role of this particular component. Let’s go to the main objective of this discussion. And that is to find if it affects alignment!

Are Sway Bar Links Connected to Alignment?

As briefly mentioned before, the sway bar links don’t have any correlation with your wheel alignment. They don’t and can’t affect your car’s alignment in any way. 

So, the simple answer to “can sway bar links affect alignment” is a big No!

But is it that simple? Let’s try to analyze the answer a bit more.

As the sway bar moves along with the suspension, it minimizes the swaying. To be more precise, the anti-roll bar is crucial to prevent any rolling issue. 

Furthermore, it helps your car to prevent any accident and ensure safe and smooth rides.

Source: Street Muscle

However, changing or replacing the sway bar links doesn’t affect the alignment. Many try to say yes to “Do you need an alignment after replacing sway bar links”. But in reality, you don’t need that. You’ll just be drowning that hard-earned cash to the drain!

Regardless of your tire size whether it’s 255 tires or 265 tires, you don’t need any alignment. So, don’t go on and spend those greens without being absolutely sure.

Now you might be thinking that then what does sway bar affect? Well, to get your answers, follow me to the next segment.

Does Sway Bar Affect Your Car Handling?

Sway bars don’t affect anything unless it goes to the extreme. Although these components do affect your car handling and control. Sway bars provide good support to the suspension to turn those risky corners.

While those bar links have an effect on handling, other things stay mostly unaffected. However, if your sway bar goes bad, it’ll affect your car driving experience big time!

So you might want to know about the other reasons to use a sway bar. So take a look-

So, it’s crucial to know how to be certain about broken sway bar lines.

Well, the good thing is that I can share my insights about that too! Head on to the next segment to know about the condition of your sway bars.

How to Know if Your Sway Bar has Gone Bad?

Maintaining the condition of your sway bar is quite beneficial for you. Why do I say that? Because a good driving experience comes from good car components.

However, what if you start noticing something from your sway bar? How can you be certain about the problems?

Just like bad grinding gears has symptoms, a broken sway bar has too! You can observe those symptoms and get a proper diagnosis.

However, you probably don’t know about the issues, do you? That’s the sole reason I’m here.

For your convenience, I’ve summed up these symptoms of broken or bad sway bar bushings. While there can be other problems too, let’s start from here. 

So, have a look-

  • Rattling and clicking noise from the bars
  • Unsmooth turns on uneven or noisy roads
  • Constant instability and noise while encountering speed bumps and rocky roads.
  • Poor handling in uneven and excessive turns

Source: Mechanic Base

While these are the most common symptoms, your focus should be on the noises. Because those are easy to notice and can be identified more aptly. Now, you diagnosed your sway bar damage successfully. What’s the next step?

The simple step is to go to a repair shop and replace it with a new one. Otherwise, your car will not perform the same way as before.

But how much will a new sway bar cost? Care to find out more? Then, follow me to the next segment one last time!

Sway Bar Replacement & Cost

The very last segment and a very important one too. Sway bars vary drastically from car to car.

So, there is no pre-defined replacement cost for the whole repair process. But for your convenience, all I can say is the cost could be around $120-130.

Now, if you want to change the bar yourself, you can do that too!

But you’ll need some tools to replace it. Such as-

If you’re out of penetrating oil, here are the veteran’s reccomendations-

Free All Rust Eater Deep Penetrating OilGet it from Amazon
Kano Aerokroil Penetrating OilGet it from Amazon

When you have all the items, you can perform the car surgery without any problems. However, try to be as careful as possible because your health matters the most.

So, that’s about everything you’ll ever need to know about sway bar links and stuff!

FAQs

Do Sway Bars Affect Ride Quality?

Sway bars affect ride quality ever so slightly on very rare occasions. Unless you’re making a quick turn or leaning to the side, you won’t notice a difference. Because your suspension can manage that much if you’re riding normally. However, a good sway bar will be good for your driving experience.

Will Sway Bars Affect Tire Wear?

In the general use case, sway bars don’t affect your wheel or tire wear. If you’re not pushing your tires too hard, they usually won’t show any uneven wear. However, driving recklessly may result in both sway bar and tire wear. Moreover, your misaligned wheels may get permanently damaged.

What Happens if Your Sway Bar Link Breaks?

If you break your sway bar lines, your car suspension will have to take more pressure. As sway bars tend to give support when turning corners, you will have a tough time. While you can still drive your car, your suspension may get affected. So, it will the best to exercise more caution on road.

Parting Words

I hope you won’t have any questions like “do sway bar links affect alignment”. Because you got to know about it in full detail.

Now, you can go wild with your car without worrying about alignment issues. 

So, hop on to your car and feel those smooth driving on every road!

Robert Lozano

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