I bought a set of Autolite Double Platinum plugs to put into my truck. It has 130k and didn't know the history of the plugs. I am very leary about damaging the threads (especially with a cross country trip in a couple of weeks) but felt if they were the original plugs they should be replaced.

So I pulled one plug and it is a Bosch +4 platinum plug, obviously not the original plugs. Looks OK. I'm thinking about putting it back in and leaving it be. If it aint broke, don't fix it sort of thing.

I'm not a big fan of gimicky performance mods and would never buy these plugs but if they are not problematic I think i should just leave them be.

Thoughts?

 

I am pushing 90K on mine and it does have the original plugs. As for the platinums, Bosch and all that I have read a few posts about NOT using them. I cant remember the details but do a search in the forum for spark plugs.

 

I put them in mine and they work very well I have not had any problems out of them yet. From what I have read most people reccomend the OEM plugs, from Ford not Motorcraft. supposedly different.

Lance

 

Thats strange, I thought OEM plugs from ford were motorcraft, those were the ones I purchased from the dealer. Some people had great luck wih the bosch, but for some reason my truck didnt like them at all, idle was rough. Also a question to everyone out there, on my first plug changed I noticed the original plugs were gapped at 62, the emissions sticker under the hood recommends 52-56. I kept them so I can show ford before my warranty expires, will this effect the longetivity of my engine considering the gap was so far off? Why the heck wouldnt ford properly gap the sparkplugs anyways from the factory, anyone else had this happen to them also?

 

There have been posts on this board about individuals who switched out the factory Motorcrafts for another brand, often Bosch, and then encountered issues with misfiring and rough running. The usual cure involved yanking out the plugs and replacing them with new Motorcrafts. This doesn't necessarily imply that Motorcraft makes a better spark plug than Bosch, but the Motorcraft may simply be better tailored for use in this application. Given how miserable a plug change can be on these trucks, I would be very unhappy if I had to do it twice within a week. I say stick with the Motorcrafts.

 

If the plugs were improperly gaped then you would have problems with the truck running, I have seen many of time where there was a bad reaction at higher speeds like a miss. and when investigated it turns out the plugs were just repl;aced and the gap was wrong. re gap right and it works fine. So if the plugs you took out worked fine but the gap is defferent then what is called for. HMMMMMM

I may have the plug name wrong but in one of the threads there was talk about dealer plugs and another plug that were made on the same assembly plant and line but they were still different and it was said to go get the dealer plugs.

Lance

 

Thing is the truck ran fine with the gap at 62, it also runs fine when gapped at 54(thought I'd down the middle). You think it would of pinged or knocked a little when its out of range like that but it idled and accelerated just fine, I only changed them because I was at 90000kms.

 

I decided the 1 Bosch 4 plug I took out will go back in for the time being. I will purchase the overwhelmingly popular Motorcraft platinums (anybody know the number??) and a new set of boots (where is the best place to get those?) and do the job at a later date.

 

I don't know the number for the boots, but on the gap thing it could be the design of the plugs as to why they worked. Never gap a platnum plug or you could run the chance of damaging the electrode.

Lance

 

Autolite makes the plugs for Ford.

 

There you go wrong name, but any way the thread said that even though autolite makes the same plug for ford the motorcraft plugs were different, and only use Motorcraft. one mans opinion.

Lance