The spark plug challenge..

[Digby]

Recently picked up a 3.0 petrol Shogun Sport from a friend and noticed that the 6 plugs are...... rather buried!

After some Googling, it seems quite common for a garage to quote 1.5 hours to do the job and you can expect to lose 2 to 3 hours under the bonnet for a reasonably well-equipped home mechanic!

Every car I have owned / worked on has taken me five to ten minutes (or less) to change a set of plugs, so it left me wondering if there are any cars out there worse than this for a plug change, or is this some sort of record?

Any horror stories out there in PH land?

[Axionknight]

Replacing the plugs is a tt of a job on a Honda Civic Type R - the FN2 version, you need to take a fair bit of trim off to get at them, but at least the change intervals are fairly lengthy.

[ging84]

i mechanic friend told me that on a bmw 850 accessing all 12 plugs to change them is such a pain the easier way is to lower the engine off it's mounts slightly

[Digby]

I feel better already

Apparently it's wise to spend a few quid and use something like NGK platinums as they tend to last 50k +, although on the NGK web page, it suggests Laser Iridium plugs will last even longer.

[P I Staker]

Just about any Subaru...

[Pickled]

I owned an E32 750 a few years back and changing the plugs on that took the best part of day, the first 10 were ok the last 2 (looking from the front of the car rear righthand side) were a nightmare I seem to remember loosening an engine mount and jacking the motor up.

[Axionknight]

Digby said:

I feel better already

Apparently it's wise to spend a few quid and use something like NGK platinums as they tend to last 50k +, although on the NGK web page, it suggests Laser Iridium plugs will last even longer.

I think the TypeR plugs last 60k, they are more expensive than a standard interval plug but that sorta balances out due to the change interval.

We swapped them out on a mates car a few weeks ago, a good service made a lot of difference, I was surprised.

[Hammer67]

IIRC the Jag XJS 5.3 V12 is about a 10 hour job.

[StuntmanMike]

Did an XJS once, I had to remove the rear exhaust manifolds if I remember right, that was over 20 years ago though.

[Pickled]

StuntmanMike said:

Did an XJS once, I had to remove the rear exhaust manifolds if I remember right, that was over 20 years ago though.

Think half the fuel injection system needs to come off as well, plumbers nightmare lol

[Nigel Worc's]

Wasn't there an Aussie car, perhaps a Holden, that was engine out ?

[Rob197]

Rx8 are slightly awkward

[r11co]

Jag X-Type V6. Inlet manifold has to come off to change the rear three plugs. The job is significantly longer if you don't blank off the inlet ports with some cardboard and then drop something in there.....

[mini1380cc]

P I Staker said:

Just about any Subaru...

Can confirm. Last time I had the engine out I seized the moment.

[TheAngryDog]

The plugs for my M5 took about an hour last time

[JakeT]

While I haven't done it the E60 M5 is meant to be a tough one to do as the last two plugs are right back against the bulkhead. There's some ford 5.7 lump in the US F150 that seems to need a body off Frame the have the plugs done properly.

[S0 What]

Smart car, remove rear bumper and crash structure then use a special tool to remove the 3 rear plug leads (6 plugs in the 3cyl engine), not a great amount of time compaired to a V12 jag i'll admit but convoluted non the less or golf FSI= remove the inlet maniifold to acess the middle 2 plugs ?

[Superhoop]

Mazda Xedos 9 with the Miller engine... Front bank, 10 minutes, rear bank, about 5 hours.

[TheAngryDog]

I expect the V8 Audis are pretty straight forward considering the position of the engine

[boyse7en]

The Alfa V6 in my 166 is a bit of a sod. The front three aren't too bad, just a load of allen-head bolts to remove the cover, more bolts to remove the coils and then a long-reach extension to get too the plugs.
The rear bank is the same, but also involves removing the entire inlet tract, throttle arrangement, plenum chamber and a whole heap of pipes/cables/etc from the back of the head.

I seem to remember a friend who had a sporty Renault 5 (Gordini Mk1 I think) said that the windscreen had to be removed to get to the rearmost plug.