Wednesday 20th June 2007

Sparky

Bosch makes ten billionth spark plug

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Here’s a fact for the day: Bosch has just made its ten billionth spark plug.

The anniversary plug was made at the company’s Bamberg plant in Germany which was opened in 1939 and has manufactured the majority of the company’s output.

Laid end-to-end, the Bosch spark plugs would form a chain stretching for more than 560,000 kilometres, circling the equator approximately 14 times.

So now you know…

www.bosch.co.uk

[Pradley]

Wow

[Mafioso]

So how many plugs have NGK and Denso made then?

[greybeard]

Yes, Bosch makes lots of plugs. But I'd still like to know whether there's any lab evidence of increased efficiency of their 2- and 4-electrode plugs over the standard variety, or whether it's just a gimmick.

[flattotheboards]

opened in 1939 and its been the same guy counting the spark plugs up untill now.

[dilbert]

A long time ago, I worked at a place that made microswitches, and they must have been making around 100,000 of those in a day. Even then that's 300 years worth!

[SS HSV]

I have just played the great spark plug rip off; trying to establish the difference in price, quality and perfomance for copper, iridium and double platinum. It would seem that longlitivity is really the only benefit as copper typicaly lasts 12-16000 miles, and the others between 60-90,000 miles.

Price difference?

Standard Copper: £18 for 8
Double Platinum: £156 for 8

Doubt if I will have the car in another 80,000 miles time.

[stevieturbo]

multiple electrodes are for longer service life.


I would only use NGK or Denso.

[roadsweeper]

I'd be more interested to hear how many sparks those 1bn spark plugs have produced?!

[yzf1070]

roadsweeper said:

I'd be more interested to hear how many sparks those 1bn spark plugs have produced?!

I would ne more interested to know how many fewer circumferences of the equator they would have managed had they continued to provide rebuildable plugs....?!? aka lodge....hmmmm