Bought Moog ball joint for the drivers side Lower Ball Joint on my wifes 2006 Dakota V8 4X4
Quick question, will I need to get a front end alignment after the install?
Thanks, from a Ram Owner

 

I would recommend one, yes.

 

Normally any work that involves disassembly of the front end would require an alignment. Just to be safe.

 

Thanks for the replies, after the work is done I will take it to Firestone and get the lifetime wheel alignment. Because from what I'm learning is these trucks go through ball joints and other front end parts like crazy.

 

Just the oem stuff. If you replace with quality aftermarket, you will be fine then.

 

Stay away from mevotech!

 

The Firestone by me doesn't offer lifetime alignment on any 4 wheel drive vehicle.

 

To me, "Lifetime Warranty" doesn't make a whole bunch of sense on an adjustment that's based on parts that can wear. The better the parts, the less the wear, the fewer the alignments.

Before I would do an alignment, I would change both ball joints and check all the other steering joints to make sure I minimized the number of alignments. If the joints on the truck were put on at roughly the same time, they should wear at roughly the same rate, so if you change 1 now and do an alignment, you'll be changing the other in short order and will need another alignment. Around here, the alignment is a lot more expensive than 1 ball joint.

 

The lifetime alignment thing started when they thought that people would trade in or sell their cars before it ever needed to be done again. Too many people took advantage of that and would align after every change they made to their suspension, such as leveling kits and such.

The idea was to charge a price for the regular alignment and ask 30 more or something for the lifetime. Some places have either completely gotten rid of the deal or have limited it to 2wd vehicles only. No one around me even offers it anymore for either vehicle type.

 

That makes sense as a marketing gimmick rather than a practical (or even truthful) statement.