While I was always aware of the benefits of doing such maintenance, I didn't realize until today how bad things were. I guess as time goes by, the degradation of such things is slow and minute, that I never realized how performance also degraded.

My engine was changed out 12k miles ago, apparently, with new plugs. I'm guessing the wires have been on the car for at least 50K miles if not the whole time and the coils I have no idea. I can only assume I've had the original coils even with the new engine.

I started a thread not too long ago about a weird stuttering, power loss during the 3500-4500 rpm range, thinking it was a carbon build up in the manifold or something along those lines. And while I can not yet confirm that today's maintenance fixed that I can certainly say it feels like I'm driving a new car.

My concern are the plugs I removed, as you can see from the pics. If these are only 12K mile plugs, WTF happened? This can't be normal. It appears the aft trailing plug is the only one that looks like it should. But that front leading plug is an utter mess. I guess this may also explain the slow start up.

I'll see soon enough if the weird power loss thing still occurs over the next few days. It's absolutely crazy the response the car has now.....can't believe it's been like that for so long.

 

wow would you be able to confirm if those plugs were in fact changed 12k ago?
I should go check mine soon...

 

Yup, welcome to the joys of our ignition problems with the 8

I'd be surprised if the engine change included plugs to be honest. They might have, sure, but it isn't something that they usually change. Everything else is supposed to be just put back on what they took off type deal.

So with at least wires in that poor of condition, I'm not too surprised that your plugs ended up that way. If coils were mostly gone too, then it just helps to confirm it.

With a new engine and new ignition, yes, you should feel like you are driving a new car...


World of difference isn't it?

 

I asked the service manager to look up the work order from the engine change and it did mention plugs, but no mention of wires or coils, hence, my assumption was these are only 12k miles old.

 

Did the work at a friends place and when I left onto the main road, I didn't pounce on it or even go WOT, I just wanted to get into traffic and was floored by how it got up to speed...

 

Yup. I'm convinced most of the 8 owners that find the 8 "slow" or "wtf, this isn't 190whp" have health issues with their ignition and/or engine.

 

I just bought a new set of the NGK plugs off of Amazon and got them last week. I was thinking of putting them in but now I think I will wait until I can get a new set of coils and wires. I don't want to ruin a new set of plugs if my coils are bad.

 

prob not changed at engine build