Advice on what to do about a technician who stripped my spark plugs into the head

Not sure the 3V analogy is all that parallel here. From the thread linked by Nukeman, my understanding is that the exposed threads in the chamber ‐‐ or perhaps just the end of the plug -- "grows" considerably in diameter from corrosion or deposits. They also report it's quite tenacious and difficult to break or chip off the plug.

So, when you remove it you're cramming a larger peg into a smaller hole and thread damage is inevitable.

Again, this is a crude distillation of my understanding, but I'm a cave man. Make fire. Kill something.

Yes, the 3Vs suffer a similar problem with the last few threads getting deposits, but it sounds like it's nowhere near as severe.

It seems the solution with these CNG motors is regular removal of the plugs, kinda like a dental cleaning every 6 months.

I read for ~2 minutes to reach these conclusions so I may be wrong.
 
I’m pretty sure these plugs could’ve been worked back and forth little, by little and removed without damaging the threads.
However this requires experience to recognize there is a problem. Something that’s lacking in the industry.

Looking at OPs spark plugs, the tech likely just kept turning the wrench despite the resistance. He was so confident in his skills, that he repeated the process two more times. The carnage is quite an obvious sign of his lack of experience.
Depends, this is almost adhesion similar to soldering, in that case you will not be able to loosen them.
Even could be similar to sintering, takes heat and pressure.

"Lack of experience" that explains most all mechanics nowadays.
 
I have seen almost everything as ive been around a while and machines of all types are my passion... in my opinion. experience+patience. Sometimes things take time. Time... Mechanics LOVE Book time. Most every job quoted beats the estimated book time. that equals many times the shop rate in profit per day per mechanic in a shop. Sometimes (on very rare occation) the book time is not enough. shops and mechanics hate that! They feel now they are not getting paid what they are worth, not taking into consideration how much ("extra") money they made on the last 50 jobs. So selfish mistakes are made with little to no accountability to the customer, Or simply, its a race to make as much as possible in the shotest amount of time. Or the boss is breathing down their neck. There are many many factors to a repair especially when things are stuck or frozen in place. The question is how long is one to wait, or take, to properly do the job? Communication with the customer is key, he would rather get his vehicle back a day or two later if it ment a day or two of soaking would have been the answer. A cutting torch is a mechanics best freind but not around the low melting point of aluminium most times.

In this case, I would almost guarantee that spark plugs are not the reason for the main complaint. Yes they should be done regardless and now needs the correct solution.

Please keep us update
 
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Hey all, can you advise me how difficult it might be to remove the cylinder head myself, then take it to have it repaired? How much do you think it should reasonably cost to have the cylinder head repaired once removed?
Impossible to guess how difficult it would be for you.
What is your mechanical aptitude? This is not a good beginner project.
On the difficulty scale this is up there, because it's a timing chain engine, not a belt.
The chain cover has to be removed, which helps support the engine, and also requires removal of the front crank pulley.
Just removing the crank bolt can be a challenge, with typical home tools.
If this car was driven in the salt belt - many bolts may be a challenge.
I wouldn't even try to guess what a machine shop would charge. -- Let your fingers do the walking.
 
Respecting the opinions above, I believe the problem can be solved without removing the head. Just use a small clear vinyl tube to vacuum out any debris. Do a good job. Experienced spark plug insert mechanics do this job 'in-situ' all the time. It is rare that an issue occurs.

Look on Youtube there are many examples.

 
Not sure if any tech could have taken those out successfully. But a good tech would have known when to stop and not destroy anything.
Haha, with my luck, I'd try all the tricks, including the best impact wrench around, and I'd still end up with broken spark plugs in the head.

FWIW, the 3/8 drive battery impact wrenches are supposed to be the secret to removing Ford's breakage prone 5.4L plugs.
 
Haha, with my luck, I'd try all the tricks, including the best impact wrench around, and I'd still end up with broken spark plugs in the head.

FWIW, the 3/8 drive battery impact wrenches are supposed to be the secret to removing Ford's breakage prone 5.4L plugs.
I’ve heard about those 5.4’s…but luckily haven’t had the pleasure.
 
Spraying a them with a penetrant wouldn't do any good. It couldn't have possibly gotten to the threads.
You can have Time-sert, thread repair inserts installed. Searching that brand name will give you an idea of what that is.
Probably not a DIY job.
time-sert IMO is the best out there, but doing it properly in the car is all but impossible. The head needs to come off.
 
How the hell do you strip out 3 spark plugs on a 4 cylinder?
after 1 you stop.
He use an impact on it or something??!??!?!
First day on the job "oil change guy" promotion?
I am going with the “Tech” not understanding righty righty lefty loosey. Or he removed the plugs with a slide hammer.
Plugs in a natural gas motor likely last far longer than in a gas engine. They may have been original. Which might partially explain how they became one with the head.
Time for Time Serts..
 
Respecting the opinions above, I believe the problem can be solved without removing the head. Just use a small clear vinyl tube to vacuum out any debris. Do a good job. Experienced spark plug insert mechanics do this job 'in-situ' all the time. It is rare that an issue occurs.

Look on Youtube there are many examples.



The steel core of at least 2 plugs are still in place & fused to the cylinder head. Any extraction device will likely swell the core making things worse.
 
This is terrible. I think they were over tight because the failure happened during removal it is likely not their fault though only an idiot doesn’t stop after one..

Looking on eBay you can get a good, used head for under $200 for a really nice, clean used one. To change the head, you will need a head gasket and a valve cover gasket set too. It requires removing the timing belt, cam shafts, valves and transferring all that stuff. You will want a good mechanic to properly lap in the valves and set your valve lash correct and do the timing belt. It is probably going to cost you $2000 to $4000 if you pay someone to do it.

It’s kind of sad because you could do the entire job yourself for $300 to $400 including new plugs in a handful of hours
 
Hey all, I'm looking for some advice on an unfortunate situation with an automotive repair center

I have a 2009 Honda Civic GX, a rare vehicle that runs on CNG out of the factory, one of the few. It was a family heirloom passed down from my Grandpa and used to save me tons on fuel costs. The car is identical to a normal civic but with a higher compression and a different fuel system
One day I was driving it and everything was fine, I shut the car off and went back to start it again and it would crank easy but no firing at all. This had happened to me before and it was the crankshaft position sensor so I figured it was likely the same culprit again. I did some research for a reputable automotive repair center and found one and had it towed there.

They took a look at my car and called me up. He said the spark plugs in it look pretty bad, as in difficult to remove, and they wanted $275 to change them but that's only if the spark plugs come out easy he said, if they don't then it will be more. I said to him that the car was running fine and then just quit firing at all rather suddenly, and that this had happened before and the culprit was the crankshaft position sensor. I was really skeptical of him changing the spark plugs for this reason because that just didn't seem to be the culprit to me. He said, well the book says that the first thing you start with is making sure you have good spark, so that's what I'm doing. I said yea, but could it really be the spark plugs? Would they all really go bad at once like that all at the same time? He said maybe, if the cold weather over night caused the gap to change or something like that. This seemed really odd to me, but I needed to get my car repaired and on the road, so I said alright, I guess if that's what you have to do then go ahead.

A little bit later I talked to someone and I realized how silly this sounded about the spark plug gap changing from the weather and the whole thing just didn't seem logical at all. I thought shoot, I should call them up and have them cancel this, so I picked up the phone and asked them to stop working on it, but by then the damage was done, he had stripped three of the spark plugs into the cylinder head.

I tried to ask them, why didn't you just spray some penetrant oil or something like that so that they wouldn't get stripped? He gave me a reply that didn't even make sense, he said "Because you called me up and said to stop working on it". At the time I was just really not in the but I should have pushed back on these people harder. I did not feel comfortable having my car worked on by these people so I just had it towed out of there and it's been sitting at my house ever since, not running.

Now I am out a car and I just feel screwed over by these people. I just wanted to get your guys thoughts on what they did, and see if you might have any advice on what I can do about this situation? I feel like it was incredibly dumb of them to go ahead with the plugs, without even spraying some type of penetrant oil in there first to prevent this from happening, and when the culprit didn't even seem to be the spark plugs in the first place. That being said, they claim that it is the original spark plugs with 150,000 miles on the car. I don't know about that because I only recently got the car from my Grandpa, but the whole situation just seems really messed up to me. At no point did he take the time to explain to me that if the spark plugs don't come out right, it was going to require a whole new cylinder head and thousands of dollars more in repairs, I mean that alone might have been a good thing to mention to me on the phone. Also at no point did he change up his methods when the first plug didn't come out right so as to prevent stripping out the others, he just kept right on doing the same thing with each and every spark plug, blindly following the book when the likely culprit wasn't even spark plugs in the first place.
Engines running on cog or propane don't foul the plugs like gasoline does. They will last a lot longer. I doubt that the plugs were the problem.
 
I find it interesting that some people can say with certainly that an impact was used. Would any tech no matter how bad use an impact on spark plugs? I’m as lazy as the next guy and use an impact all kinds of ways I shouldn’t but I would never even think about using one on spark plugs.

What are you seeing that makes it 100% clear a impact was used?
 
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