Koby

A couple months ago I had a shop replace my K-member along with my upper and lower A-arms. I noticed when they had it up on the rack that my front sway bar was actually broken, so I told them just to take it off and I'd put a new one on later. So after they finished and aligned the car, which the alignment seemed pretty good, I went and put on a new sway bar. Now I have to hold the wheel at almost a 45 degree angle to get the car to go straight.

I'm thinking I need a new alignment with the sway bar since it wasn't on the car for the original, or did I do something when I put it on the car?

Injuneer

The sway bar should not affect the alignment in any way. When the car is level side-to-side, the sway bar isn't doing anything at all except just hanging there. It only affects the handling when the chassis starts to roll, and then it helps reduce the body roll - would not affect alignment.

I would have the front end inspected by the shop that did the front end work and the alignment. Unless you took the tie rods loose, or pulled the steering wheel off at some point (neither of which is necessary ot install the sway bar), I can't think of any way the steering could be thrown off by that much. Hard to believe the shop that did the suspension work didn't notice the sway bar was broken in the first place.

mrmint69

I would take it to the shop as is and let them see it. Unless you think you could have done something wrong installing it.