Fake NGK plugs on Amazon

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Jan 9, 2010
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Location
Los Gatos, CA
In May 2019 I put a set of 4 NGK plugs from Amazon in an Acura TSX with 80K miles. I believe I paid $40...
These plugs should easily go 90K. Marc recently replaced them as the car was running poorly.
He got about 35K outta them.

So I have now bought 2 sets of fake plugs and 1 set of 8 fake coils for my Tundra.
It ain't so much the money; it is the betrayal; the breach of trust.
 
I bought a set (4) NGK plugs from RockAuto for my brothers Honda Civic at a better price than OEMPartSource had, and I called NGK and they were nice and verified that the ones I bought were actually made by NGK. They also told me what the proper torque is to tighten them to.

What did they do to walk you through the verification?
 
My son bought NGK plugs off of Amazon and a year or so later, he got random misfires. He took it to the local Honda specialist who found it only acted up when cold and not all the time at that. He spent quite a bit of time looking at things with no luck. Right or wrong, he didn't try replacing plugs because my son told him they were less than a year old and were NGK (he probably pulled them and confirmed too). I had been messaging @The Critic about this and he suspected the plugs. I do remember that the price was pretty low for what they were and that concerned me. I then checked our Amazon order history for this purchase and found that the seller was gone from Amazon. When I told my son, he called O'Reilly and order (6) NGK Iridium. He paid at least 1.5X more than the first ones cost, but we installed them and it's been flawless since.
 
My son bought NGK plugs off of Amazon and a year or so later, he got random misfires. He took it to the local Honda specialist who found it only acted up when cold and not all the time at that. He spent quite a bit of time looking at things with no luck. Right or wrong, he didn't try replacing plugs because my son told him they were less than a year old and were NGK (he probably pulled them and confirmed too). I had been messaging @The Critic about this and he suspected the plugs. I do remember that the price was pretty low for what they were and that concerned me. I then checked our Amazon order history for this purchase and found that the seller was gone from Amazon. When I told my son, he called O'Reilly and order (6) NGK Iridium. He paid at least 1.5X more than the first ones cost, but we installed them and it's been flawless since.
Exactly. I bet if you look at the fakes they will show significantly more wear. Marc showed me the plugs today and the electrode was rounded down to nothing. No way in "h-e double toothpics" were they NGK OE plugs.
 
I've taken to only buying plugs and other critical components from my FLAPS or trusted niche suppliers for this very reason, but I was a slow learner as I suspect many are...
 
Why are you buying autoparts from Amazon? Napa has a sale going on until may 20 with 20% off and free shipping

@JeffKeryk I completely agree it sucks. But everytime this comes up I keep sounding like a commercial.. lol.. Get them at NAPA like I do! I did get lucky but that was more than a couple years ago buying spark plugs from Amazon.

I'm telling ya, the fakes are getting so good that eventually it will be the ONLY way to see if they're fakes is because they don't last that long!
 
@Trav and I recently had this discussion. He informed me the best place to buy NGK plugs is directly from NGK, followed by AAP. As a result of that conversationI wouldn't buy them from anyone else.
Just this week, I ordered a set of NGK plugs from Advance Auto Parts. Great price with the coupon code and cashing in speedperks.

Plugs arrived and were shipped from the NGK facility in Irvine CA.

The site ngk.com is a third party reseller aka sparkplugs.com, but I assume they drop ship from NGK as well.
 
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