This past weekend was a good one for my Fusion, maintenance-wise.
In addition to doing an oil and filter change on Saturday, which included PUP and a Fram Ultra, I also did a spark plug replacement on Sunday.
.. A little back-story. I bought the car at over 177,000 and it just rolled 215,000 miles this past weekend. Over the past few months, I've been noticing a slow drop in fuel economy, and also that the engine idles a bit rough sometimes, when I'm stopped at lights. I figured it was probably due for new plugs.
Ordered new Autolite Double Platinum plugs from Rock Auto about 2 weeks ago, got them in hand about a week ago, and set time aside to do them on Sunday.
.. No problems in getting to them - the 2.5 liter engine is easy to work on - but once I got in there, I could not believe what I found.
1 - The plugs looked old, like they'd been in there a LONG time.
2 - The plugs are branded FoMoCo - not Motorcraft - making me wonder if they are the factory plugs. Can you get FoMoCo plugs anywhere?
3 - I looked on the CarFax for this car, and while I found detailed service records going back to when the car had 4 miles on it, I could not find anywhere, any single mention of Spark Plugs
Some pics:
... Could these plugs actually have 215,000 miles on them??
- I checked the FoMoCo part number (ILTR5A-13G) and found that they are Laser Iridium plugs, so I suppose they COULD technically last that long, but 215,000 miles? That's unheard of.
.. One other observation:
Plugs 2 and 4 both had quite a bit of oil in the socket wells, and plug 4 was almost covered in oil up to the tip. The strange thing is, this car uses virtually no oil over a 7,500 mile OCI - I fill it to the full like when I change the oil, and I check just before I change it again, and it's still at the full line.
The only thing I can figure is that before I bought it, someone did an oil change at some point and spilled oil all over the valve cover.. and left it there, where it ultimately drained down into the plug wells. I was able to wick the oil out with some paper towel, and while it was dark, it did not smell burnt or 'used' - It still smelled almost exactly like new oil.
Anyways, discuss..
... Could these plugs actually have 215,000 miles on them??
- I checked the FoMoCo part number (ILTR5A-13G) and found that they are Laser Iridium plugs, so I suppose they COULD technically last that long, but 215,000 miles? That's unheard of.
.. One other observation:
Plugs 2 and 4 both had quite a bit of oil in the socket wells, and plug 4 was almost covered in oil up to the tip. The strange thing is, this car uses virtually no oil over a 7,500 mile OCI - I fill it to the full like when I change the oil, and I check just before I change it again, and it's still at the full line.
The only thing I can figure is that before I bought it, someone did an oil change at some point and spilled oil all over the valve cover.. and left it there, where it ultimately drained down into the plug wells. I was able to wick the oil out with some paper towel, and while it was dark, it did not smell burnt or 'used' - It still smelled almost exactly like new oil.
Anyways, discuss..
