Thread: V8 plugs at 90,000

Originally Posted by 4bee

What is the "accepted" method of plug cleaning these days?

A few years ago you could take them to the little servo down the road & the greasy faced, bald old guy would shove them in the sandblaster plug cleaner & test them under air pressure.

Things have moved on I realise, & I just use a good blast of electronic cleaner down the guts, wire brush the end piece & electrodes & a bit of a scrape inside again followed by another blast of spray & then reset the gap. I then bung some Never-Seez on the thread before replacing.

My neighbour used to own a servo and he used to sandblast and test spark plugs. But that was YEARS ago. He says that spark plugs are so cheap these days they just put a new one and chuck out the old one.

Obviously he's not referring to Platinum plugs.

Platinum plugs were introduced so that cars could pass the USA Government requirement that a car MUST not need maintenance for 60,000 Miles. This was and is for emission control.

The idea of cleaning platinum plugs is therefore really a no-no, as they are designed to last 60,000miles without maintenance.

I cannot really see the economics on using them on an older engine when old type plugs cost about $3 and last say 30K, as long as you enjoy doing the labour yourself.

The newer opinion (about 20-30 years ago)on cleaning plugs is that the sand blaster left a coating of silica on the plug which encouraged misfires and the "rounded " electrodes also made misfire more likely. In any case its false economy. In addition unleaded fuel saw an end to "lead glazing" which was the primary reason for cleaning plugs.
Many of you are probably too young to ever have even seen lead glazing.
Regards Philip A

I know why D2 TD5 owners have more problems than there V8 variants. You guys obviously don't drive them V8's. 90000km's!!!!!!!!!!!! I've nearlly doubled that.