Spark plug removal? Changed your feelings for BRZ?

[GirlyScions]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

Something cheap thats a PITA that you'll need to do in ~5-6 years makes you rethink buying a car?

Sock plugs last 5-6 years? Ive been changing mine every two and I always see a return investment in MPG.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by GirlyScions

Sock plugs last 5-6 years? Ive been changing mine every two and I always see a return investment in MPG.

Spec for most platinum tipped plugs in most cars is 100k. I replace mine every 60k or so but have never noticed an obvious difference.

[lordtakuban]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

Spec for most platinum tipped plugs in most cars is 100k. I replace mine every 60k or so but have never noticed an obvious difference.

Yep. I replaced mine at about 80K and that was with lots of methanol being injected into the chamber for about 25K miles. So 100K is doable, but figure 60K to 75K as a conservative estimate.

[dirk_diggler]

Denso ZXE27HBR8 is an Iridium plug. On my prev Camry the change interval on the Iridium plugs was 120k miles. When I pulled them at 110k I saw no difference between what I pulled and the new ones. The gap on the used ones was 0.032 instead of new at 0.031. I put the new ones in since I got the old ones out, but it made no difference whatsoever. Biggest waste of time ever, especially since the bank closest to the firewall was a PITA to remove.

Anyone have ideas why Toyota/Subaru wants us to replace these Iridium plugs at 60k?

Come to think of it, looking at the first section of the shop manual posted in another thread, the service intervals for all services seems compressed. Are they figuring everyone will drive the piss out of these cars?

[immortal_suby]

I bet it is still easier than the plugs on an svx.

[AZP Installs]

Originally Posted by immortal_suby

I bet it is still easier than the plugs on an svx.

I miss my SVX!

I haven't looked at the intervals yet but my guess is the usual Subaru intervals, 30k and 60k get gear, brake and engine fluids, 100k gets coolant, 60k gets plugs. Oil changes every 7500.

-mike


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[ahausheer]

Originally Posted by Spaceywilly

Cool story. Taking the wheel off is not what annoys me. What annoys me is that a job that should be simple and take 5 minutes now takes 30 minutes for no reason other than bad engineering.

Perhaps a bad design decision but not bad engineering. They knew early on in the development of the motor about this. You likely wont have to lift the engine, you'll just have to get creative with sockets, extensions and curse words. Now changing the starter motor looks a bit harder, hope that never fails.

[Sony]

Originally Posted by ahausheer

Now changing the starter motor looks a bit harder, hope that never fails.

Really? That didn't look terribly hard to me, it's sitting right on top of the bell housing right near the firewall, next to the slave cylinder. Looked like there was plenty of room to get it out.

[Spaceywilly]

Originally Posted by ahausheer

Perhaps a bad design decision but not bad engineering. They knew early on in the development of the motor about this. You likely wont have to lift the engine, you'll just have to get creative with sockets, extensions and curse words. Now changing the starter motor looks a bit harder, hope that never fails.

I was talking about the civic si

[bucket]

Originally Posted by eikond

I have mixed feelings about this topic. The difficulty of changing the spark plugs wouldn't dissuade me from buy the car new.. but it would certainly make me think twice about buying one used in a few years.

I've had a long string of Nissan 240sx's.. I can't tell you how many times I needed to pull spark plugs as part of diagnosis as you're working on the car. Being able to swap plugs to find a misfire, check the color of the tips to see if it's rich or lean, do compression tests, and other stuff makes a used car or a modified car easy to live with. Having to lift a motor to do any of these things will make this an unfriendly car to own and modify when it's a bit older. I'm not a big fan of this.

All I can think about whenever somebody mentions that changing plugs is something you do once every five years is when I was driving around with a slightly bad MAF plug on my 240. I was changing out or at least inspecting the spark plugs monthly...sometimes they would show rich, sometimes lean, occasionally not bad.

Then I remind myself that this is a new warrantied car that I'm not going to F with to the same extent as the 240.

[OrbitalEllipses]

Originally Posted by bucket

Then I remind myself that this is a new warrantied car that I'm not going to F with to the same extent as the 240.

*DING! DING! DING!* WINNER!

Everybody I know with one of those or who ever owned one was fucking with them constantly. There's a difference between a 10-20 year old rice rocket and new one.

Actually, one dumb SOB friend of mine is selling is S14 to buy an older S13...that makes sense.

[Rampage]

So, if the plugs have to be changed at 60K and a lot of people here are saying they are not concerned with it then I guess in 4-5 years there are going to be a lot of these available on the used car market. Let the next owner worry about it.

[finch1750]

Originally Posted by Mavrik

Having worked/rebuilt several subaru engines in my past, both turbo duel overhead cam and single n/a engines... the spark plug placement doesn't bother me a bit. Its no different in placement then any of their other engines. Seems to have more room than an STi infact.

I agree that there seems to be more room than in the STi. Most times people think you have to drop, pull the motor to do the plugs on Subarus, but I could do all four in my STi with just a flex head ratchet and an extension. Pull a few things out of the way and all 4 can be swapped in under 30 minutes. It isn't as bad as it seems and a Subaru mechanic worth his weight shouldn't have too much trouble and then the price should be reasonable. Or get a DIY and do it in the Autozone parking lot since it doesn't take so long. Lol

[OrbitalEllipses]

What's all this about a Subaru mechanic worth their weight? As a shade tree mechanic, I did plugs on my WRX for the first time ever in about 2 hours, with no previous experience on a Subaru, or any car ever for that matter. It was kind of a bitch, but I certainly didn't get the engine out of the car. You had to first remove the stock intake snorkel and airbox for the passenger side (maybe move the power steering reservoir too); the driver's side required removing the windshield washer reservoir (larger on my wagon than on the sedans). That's it. Flex head + extension, done.