Spark plug issue
 

What would cause plugs to go bad frequently ? I had to replace mine twice since i've owned the car. It's and 09 , so i've had for about 3 years , and it only has 14 k on it. Any ideas ??? Fuckin things are expensive too .... 200 for all 4.

i pay about 80 for all foru plugs. do you premix hevily? coils? how do you drive it? how do you know they are bad? pics? have you tried cleaning them? wrong gap?

Good lord where are you buying them from? Can easily be had for no more than 80 bucks

op, next time you need plugs send me $150 and your addy and ill next day ship them

He's probably getting them from the dealer. My dealer wants $200 a set, down from the $260 a set a few years ago. Fortunately, I learned about the $80 sources before I ever needed any. Twice I've had a set (at $80) in my glove box when a change was needed...saved me from the dealer price.

BCD - don't know what's killing your plugs, but you can get them for $80 or less from Rock Auto, Amazon, Autozone, sparkplugs.com, etc.

Ken

He probably paid $200 for labor as well? Since the dealer probably says "jacking up the car to get to them takes me a billion hours, you are getting a deal."

Also since he is NOT changing his own plugs.. WHO says you need new plugs anyways? the deal probably? They are ripping you off, you should be looking at plug sets every 30k miles, not 7. Also, are you winter storing it? Maybe that is the reason? I want to know your reasoning behind thinking that the plugs are going bad and why you always need to replace them.

Advance Auto Parts had them for a bit above 13 bucks each.
Dealer installed mine when I bought the car back in Sept 07 at about 25k miles
I took it in for one of those TSB. They were replaced at no cost to me, just my time
Am at a bit over 47K miles now

Myardor were they the right ngk plugs? Autozone and a few other places have some plugs listed made by pulsar(I think) that were ~$12 each when I last checked but I didn't want to put those in.

Ok to answer some of the responses .... first yes the car is stored winters and i do not premix. The reason I know it's the plugs is that I was having an idle issue ... real subtle miss here and there but was very noticeable. At any rate, we had tried everything else, didn't think it was the coils since it only did it at idle and I had just replaced coils last year with bhrs , and when we replaced them the issue was gone. So had to be the issue. I honestly don't know which one or is it was all 4. I kinda doubt it was all four. I don't think the shop honestly knew how to or wanted to figure out which one it was. Honestly I didn't feel like arguing with them was just glad the issue was fixed. Been screwing with this since i got back from oklahoma with the car.

As far as the cost of the plugs, they weren't the stock plugs .... they were replaced with the NGK's but the racing ones which i believe go for 39 on summit. I got them for 42.50 actually. Got them from the shop, those were the best ones they had as far as recommended plugs so i just got those.

From what i'm reading, some of you feel that storing the car in the winter could be the issue? Anything i can do to help decrease that from occuring ?

I haven't seen NGK's , the factory plugs for 13 anywhere .... saw em for 25 usually, but the racing ones were usually about what i paid.

Yes, they were the proper ones, ie NGK both leading and trailing
normal price is 20.xx but with the discount it came to 13.xx

Yes, I did see the other ones ie as per this post/thread >

https://www.rx8club.com/tech-garage-...ts-com-237731/

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Did a search and was surprised at the different plugs offered.
I did have my car set to the 06 RX-8

NGK Iridium IX Spark Plug Part No. 2669 $7.09
Autolite Double Platinum Spark Plug Part No. 458DP $2.09
NGK Racing Spark Plug Part No. 4554 $3.59
Autolite Racing Copper Core Non-Resistor Spark Plug Part No. AR3932 $4.09
NGK Racing Spark Plug Part No. 4091 $3.09
Autolite Double Platinum Spark Plug Part No. 295DP $2.09

I thought we only used on type. and leading /trailing at that
NGK Laser Iridium Spark Plug (RE7C-L) Part No. 6700 $20.09
NGK Laser Iridium Spark Plug (RE9B-T) Part No. 6701 $20.09

--------------------------------------------------------
So, yes they were the last one posted,

That could be the problem. Aren't racing plugs usually colder than stock plugs?

Ken

Here is part of my order, ie cut and paste.
Got 4 coils and 4 spark plugs
----------------------------------------------------------
Order Summary
Product Subtotal: $202.32
Discounts: -$80.46
Shipping Charges: $8.66
Shipping Discount: -$8.66
Core Charges: $0.00
Tax: $10.05
Total: $131.91
for 4 spark plugs and 4 coils
-----------------------------------------------------

Items to Be Picked Up:
Item Qty. Pick Up or Shipping Price Total
NGKLaser Iridium Spark Plug (RE7C-L)
Part No 6700
2
Product Price $20.09
Discount -$7.99 $40.18

NGKLaser Iridium Spark Plug (RE9B-T)
Part No 6701
2
Product Price $20.09
Discount -$7.99 $40.18

Items to Be Shipped:

Item Qty. Pick Up or Shipping Price Total
BWD/IntermotorIgnition Coil
Part No E1001
4
Ship
Product Price $30.49
Discount -$12.12

$121.96
====================
spark plugs 20.09 times 4 equals 80.36
coils 30.49 times 4 equals 121.96
total before discounts 202.32
discounts 80.46
total after discounts 121.86
Plus tax 10.05
total drive out 131.91
----------------------------------------

so spark plugs 20.09 minus discount of 7.99 equals 12.10 times 4 equals 48.40
coils 30.49 minus discount of 12.12 equals 18.37 times 4 equals 73.48

48.40 plus 73.48 equals 121.88 plus tax of 10.05 equals total drive out of 131.93
Some how they lost 2 cents. ???? Lost me here
Guess since they applied the discount to the total price and not item per item they some how gave me 2 cents more discount than I calculated.

Either way spark plugs NGK cost me about 12 bucks.

The way you said it it seemed like you were saying that was the normal price, not the 1 day deal.

Racing plugs work better in situations where the car is you know... being raced.
The conditions which these were made for are very hot, high load, high RPM use. So having a miss in an engine that is cooler, low load, low RPM kind of makes sense IMO.

I would switch to stock type NGK plugs if I were you. I take my car the track quite often and have never seen any advantage to running the NGK racing plugs, stock have always lasted just fine with my BHR ignition.

Well, I did say HAD not HAS

Advance Auto Parts had them for a bit above 13 bucks each. After calculations it was a bit over 12 bucks

Racing plugs must be better right? RACING DUDE ! *facepalm*

and he complained about plugs go bad fast ... *double facepalm*

So question still remains. Mystery not solved > What is making plugs go bad so fast on OPs car?

Heck, I had mine since about 25K and am a bit north of 47K. No problems yet.

I do not even know which plugs the dealer put in. Guess they have to be the ones Mazda carries.

Now I have 2 sets sitting in garage. Will do the first change at about 50-55K.
Peeps say the plugs should last about 30K miles. My current ones were installed at about 25K.

Bought the second set for 40 bucks. Seller, member here, said he just installed them, noticed the car had other problems (water coming out the spark plug hole) so did not even install the last one.)

Apparently not everyone is reading what i said or understanding .... and on top of that, of course, people have to try and be a dick on this forum for no apparent reason like the douche bag above. Take your facepalm and shove it up your ass. I didn't ask for your smart ass remarks. I'm not some 18 year old punk that drag races his car up and down city streets that doesn't know anything about a car. It's amazing to me why you guys wonder as to why no one ever stays in this forum.


Now .... that being said .... I HAD the FACTORY plugs on the car and those the ones that went bad TWICE . The shop i took it to replaced the plugs with the NGK Premiums / Racing plugs because they were what was recommended in the shop computer. I didn't even realize they were the racing plugs until after i looked at the receipt. The car has been running fine since I put the new plugs in so putting the Racing / Premium plugs has solved the issue and i'm having no problems at this point. No point in swithching back to stock as I'm not having any issues with the ones in now and I only drive the car in the summer anyway. If i have any issues with these plugs i'll let everyone know.

Again, the main question was what would be causing the plugs to go bad so quickly ? I am storing the car .... so that may be an issue, but from what i understand and have read this is a common problem but haven't been able to find what the cause is. Either way, problem fixed for the time being.

I'm not convinced the spark plugs were ever bad ...
I'm not saying you're lying ... I'm saying we have no pictures ... we don't know if they were all fowling equally ... we only have what apparently your mechanic said to you ... as I don't think you said you actually saw them self.

I think I read somewhere you said it's a Mazda Dealership doing the work ... so there you go right there ... when in doubt change the plugs (there's not a lot of love on this forum for dealerships).

If you are able, meaning mechanically inclined .. take the plugs out now and post some picture maybe someone will be able to tell you something.

If this is a common problem, how come I have not had it?

New plugs put in at about 25K miles (as per dealer, who knows maybe not installed,

I did not see or check they just said they did, was not given old parts)
Now at about 47K miles and no problems. It has been about 4 years or so.
Bought the car in Sept 07 and took it to do the warranty/TSB as soon as I could, ie a month or two after buying it.

I do not drive it much since I do not have a normal job but do not store it during the winter. Could that be the case?
I drive once in a while. ie whenever I feel like riding my babe.

I do have another old 4 banger I can also drive.

As far as the harsh responses go...just one of the hazards of posting here with partial information.

From your first couple of posts it was not clear that you were using OEM plugs ... the only specifics you mentioned were the racing plugs. It also wasn't clear what you meant by "bad". Were they fouling? Or were they burning up? If those premium plugs are colder and that helped, it's hard to imagine that they were fouling.

You might plug a scanner in and see what the air fuel ratio is. In pre-electronic days I'd also check timing, but I don't know how that really works on newfangled cars.

Ken

Nah it wasn't the dealership, said it was a shop .... you may be right, hard to say , but i can tell you when they were replaced the issue was gone. I was in such a hurry at the time i honestly didn't get the old plugs back. I'll have to go back to the shop and see if they have them which i kinda doubt. I actually had the car there for something else. Long story but the whole thing started out as a bad sucking noise that was just a vacuum hose loose. Thought that's what was causing the idle issue but it was not. Since the car was there i just had them do it, along with lack of time from my job, otherwise would've just checked em myself.

I didn't say everyone has the problem, lol, just said i heard at some shops that have worked on them and some posts that there's been issues with plugs fouling. Could be because people aren't letting the car warm up properly like youre supposed to, I don't know ... that's just what i've heard. At any rate, I don't do anything out of the ordinary with mine to make it have issues. I store it winters, drive it summers ... not even a lot really ... have done some mods but nothing crazy. Haven't driven it at all really this summer because Rotarary Insp Performance in OK was trying to get an ECU on this thing . Being that it's a series 2, haven't been able to quite get it to work yet. Close .... but not quite there yet.

Yes i've noticed the posts in the past, but quite honestly it shouldn't be the case. Either was I stated my plugs were replaced but with the premium / racing NKG's .... thought i stated previous plugs were stock but i must not have.

There was a slight miss in the idle, wasn't awful but very noticeable. As i stated earlier all i know is that when they were replaced issue was gone. Honestly we were running out of ideas as to what else would be causing the idle issue. No codes were showing, coils were fine , entire electircal system had been gone thru when the car was in Ok just recenetly , so this was our last idea. Wasn't really sure what i was going to do next if this didn't work.