Longest you’ve seen someone go on a set of spark plugs

My mom had ~140,000 miles on her Saturn Vue with the Ecotec, plugs looked just fine. I did replace them though.

Brother in law had 156,000 on his '04 F150 with the 5.4L 3v, and they were shot:
full-4879-1433-plug_2.png


Luckily got all 8 out with no broken plugs.
 
The most neglect I've seen was a T-100 with the 5VZ-FE. At 360k it had the original timing belt, and spark plugs. The FIPG sealing the water pump to the block was weeping, hence why it was in the shop.
 
blupupher said:
My mom had ~140,000 miles on her Saturn Vue with the Ecotec, plugs looked just fine. I did replace them though.

Brother in law had 156,000 on his '04 F150 with the 5.4L 3v, and they were shot:
full-4879-1433-plug_2.png


Luckily got all 8 out with no broken plugs.
Click to expand...
You got all 8 plugs out of a 5.4 with 156,000 miles on it? Good for you sir! Job well done!

Those things are a nightmare.

And that plug had to be misfiring, right?
 
As I said before I think 125K is about as long as I've ever left a set in. In the past spark plugs have been cheap enough I didn't worry about pushing them right up to the last mile they would run. This may change though with some plugs now running $10-20 each. I'd rather change them at my convenience than wait for them to start missing and have to do them right away. I recently changed the plugs in my '02 Ford Escort took less than 30 minutes and replaced them with some platinum plugs I'd bought for $1. each on clearance.
 
FordMan59 said:
As I said before I think 125K is about as long as I've ever left a set in. In the past spark plugs have been cheap enough I didn't worry about pushing them right up to the last mile they would run. This may change though with some plugs now running $10-20 each. I'd rather change them at my convenience than wait for them to start missing and have to do them right away. I recently changed the plugs in my '02 Ford Escort took less than 30 minutes and replaced them with some platinum plugs I'd bought for $1. each on clearance.
Click to expand...
No I agree, and whenever I’ve owned a car/truck that was relatively easy to perform a plug replacement, I’d do it BEFORE it was required or suggested.

Things like four cylinder engines we have in the family, they’re a piece of cake to change. I’ve had a couple V8’s, that although time consuming, and more expensive, weren’t all that bad to do either (Think the last V8 I had the plugs were $10-$12 dollars a piece).

Now I have this V6 and it requires the intake coming off, gaskets to be replaced, lots of potential of things breaking...and for the first time ever, I may push it further out than I normally would.
 
My Nissan is the same way, intake has to come off, vacuum hoses to remove, electrical connectors to unfasten, etc. Turned an otherwise 15-30 minute job into what I suspect will be a 1-2 hour job.
doublebase said:
No I agree, and whenever I’ve owned a car/truck that was relatively easy to perform a plug replacement, I’d do it BEFORE it was required or suggested.

Things like four cylinder engines we have in the family, they’re a piece of cake to change. I’ve had a couple V8’s, that although time consuming, and more expensive, weren’t all that bad to do either (Think the last V8 I had the plugs were $10-$12 dollars a piece).

Now I have this V6 and it requires the intake coming off, gaskets to be replaced, lots of potential of things breaking...and for the first time ever, I may push it further out than I normally would.
Click to expand...
 
I've gone over 100K on a set of non-iridium plugs on my Corolla, but I usually try to change them out every 75K or so...
 
I have 72,000 miles on the copper plugs on my Gen 1 Tundra with 162,000 miles on it. I bought a new set of the OE (Denso) plugs from the dealership, and will change them in the spring. The truck has only used Toyota plugs.
 
213K '03 Honda Element. I had bought a new set of NGK at around 160K but wound up giving them to the guy I sold it to. It was running perfect and gas milage never changed.
 
A few years back, a coworker bought a used Odyssey minivan with over 200K on the clock. He changed the plugs, and as best as we could tell they were original/factory plugs.

We spent some time looking at them under a microscope, and they were an interesting sight. A significant amount of the ground electrode had eroded, but running down it and in nearly perfect shape you could see a platinum wire. The gap between the Pt wire and the tip was actually not terribly far out of spec.
 
I worked with a guy who had a 03 F250 with a 5.4, went just over 300k miles on the original single platinum plugs. There was literally no electrode left. Wish I had taken pics. I honestly don’t even know how it ran. Started running rough one day and he finally put plugs in it.
 
I have a friend with a 400k+ honda civic. The original set of plugs were pulled and inspected around 100k and put back in because they looked great. I think they were were changed around 220k miles or thereabouts. They still looked ok when they were replaced.
 
On my Tacoma they recommend 30K intervals on copper plugs (denso/Ngk). My first plug change I went 60K. I change them every 30K now. It’s a good time to clean the throttle body and do preventive maintenance.
 
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