Coupe Guy

Champion has a new double platinum power sparkplug made with a one piece high-thread plug. designed for the Ford modular engine. They sell for about $13.00 each.

yugoboss

$400 dollars a side? were they all broke ?

ETNOATS

Fixt that for you. Wow what a rip. Ford makes a horrible design, admits to it, changes the design but wont back it up with customer service.

shaun_beauchamp

I asked the dealer about doing the change. They said they never broke a plug if the car had the service prior to 52K miles. They said to take them out about every 30K and clean them. They also said that if you wait until 100K, the cost would be cheaper to buy FRPP heads than to pay them hourly to play with broken plugs.

So, Options:

1.) Do it yourself every 30K following the TSB.
2.) Do it yourself, break some, fix them with a tool from Snap-On or Matco.
3.) Take it to the dealer and let them do it at 100K for big money.
4.) Buy cams and when you do the swap, pull the heads and change the plugs.
5.) Start saving for FRPP heads and just upgrade at 100K.
6.) Drive the car 100K and put an FRPP crate motor in.

Lime GT

My experiences with these plugs are as follows.

My partner and I at work changed the same style plugs on an 07 Expedition at approx 80k and 40k later without breaking any by following the tsb. We later sent the vehicle to a dealership due to a PCM problem and they changed the plugs again in their troubleshooting and broke two. Of coarse they charged for the repair of the broken plugs. I personally feel that if they weren't in a hurry to get the vehicle out of the shop, followed the tsb and let the carb cleaner sit overnight as we did, they wouldn't have broken any plugs.

I removed the plugs from my 05 stang at 40k using the tsb and never broke a plug. I did have to replace one as the two piece design did start to come loose which may have broke had I not had patience and worked the plug back and forth slowly until it finally spun loose.

One person at work took his F-150 in for a plug change as he thought Ford would cover any plug breakage. His $800.00 bill told him wrong when they broke most of them. He still has all of them and shows to anyone in conversation. I wonder how many people have turned away from purchasing a Ford truck after seeing them. Was it worth it for Ford to not cover it? I don't know. I guess that all depends on whether you're an accountant for Ford.

Cavero

+1. I'll take my chances I think. And if I can't extract the broken ones then maybe I'll buy 2008 heads so I won't get stuck with a bad design anymore. Now I know why I kept telling myself to not buy a car within the first couple years of a new platform

presto

I went to a performance shop in south Houston at 137,000 miles. they charged me one hour labor ($75) and took all 8 out with no problems. the weekend before i seafoamed teh engine and they came out clean, i.e. nosignificant carbon build up at all.

Cavero

Ran Seafoam in the oil? or gas tank? The intake? I think they have multiple products, not sure

houtex

re: 400/side...

I keep tellin the guy "why do you keep going back there?" because I tried them once... and they are rip off artists, I was *completely* unhappy with them, and wouldn't go back to buy or service any car. And I found out that they're owned by a certain individual, whom I won't name, but has done irreparable harm to his good standing in my book, so they're definitely on the 'off' list forever now.

In any case, they had the truck 2 days (scheduling I suppose?), and I hear tell that indeed, yes, just about all of the them were PITAs. Then again, this was his 100,000 mile spark plug change out... so there's that...

presto

1/3 bottle into intake, 2/3 into gas tank. i do that every other oil change (~15000 mi.)

houtex

Ok, well, I misremembered, everybody. Sorry about that. Still not of the opinion I'd take a car to the place, but apparently it was $400 *total* not per side, for that 5.4 in the Mark LT of the ex-boss.

But get this: The engine is now completely apart on the left side (I think?... I forget which side it's on.) The number 3 head has a bent valve due to something being left behind after the plugs were done. Gotta love that. They're covering it, apparently, so that's a point in their favor, only 1,353,245 to go.

Get this part 2: Apparently they don't do heads. Ford makes them get new ones. So they had to scrounge about for the only valve spring compressor they had to do the job... and it's still not done.

Morals? SWAP THE PLUGS at 30K. Or soonest you can. You might be without otherwise. Now I'm gonna do it. Yay. :P