Top mount replacement

[President Merkin]

I have to do these soon. On my car, there's two ways of doing it. I can either compress the springs in situ & undo the mounts or take the strut out altogether. If I do the latter, I have to remove the strut from the hub knuckle & remove the droplinks. The springs don't require much compressing on the car - Mini Cooper S but the question is will I need an alignment post job? Logically, I don't see the need if I'm not disturbing the track rods & the top mounts themselves are not adjustable but I have seen a couple of guides suggest it's required.

Slightly irritating if so as I had an alignment in January!

[TwinKam]

Checking of alignment will be needed because, as you state, the alignment was only done recently... done with the worn top mounts that you are about to replace!

[E-bmw]

The change of top mounts per-se wouldn't necessarily need alignment, as I would think it would only likely affect camber/caster which will likely not be adjustable anyway.

But I could be wrong.

[TwinKam]

I said alignment should be checked, depending on the results of the check it then may or may not need adjustment.
'Alignment' is more than just toe.
Alter the position of a strut's top mounting in space and you potentially alter camber and/or castor, alter camber and/or castor and you alter toe. Top mounts typically have a fair bit of wiggle room where they bolt to the inner wing, they are not usually dowelled in position, add-in manufacturing vagaries, plus changing from a worn one to a new one... I always check alignment after work where misalignment is a possibility.

[President Merkin]

OK so I just looked up the specs for the car. There's no camber or caster adjustment on the front wheels, so providing I don't disturb the toe & the mounts aren't excessively worn, I think I should be ok, especially as I'm running half worn tyres n the front which I may just roll with until they need replacing. Cheers everyone.

[President Merkin]

Got round to this today; Easy enough in the end but I discovered both droplinks are split & my offside inner cv boot is leaking. It passed an MOT like this two weeks ago, which is a bit disconcerting. Parts ordered, back under it tomorrow.