As I previously posted I have a small collection of posts and my Haynes concerning changing plugs by Ford owners or Ford Dealerships. In all instances if a Dealer breaks a plug they will not go the cost of pulling the head(s) to remove the broken plug. And from my collection it appeared that changing plugs prior to 35K miles allowed some insurance of no plug breakage.

Those that must or will trust a Dealership to be trustworthy are relying on the intergrity of the Dealer and the personal attitude of the Service Mananger. And each will vary according to location.

As an example, when a Recall went out for those thin pads adhered to the rear of my '04 Styleside, my local Dealer had my pickup for 7 hours, then told me they could not do the job on that day. The private Body/Paint Shop they wanted to sub it out to was booked. I questioned the need for a Body Shop and the local Service Manager told me they had to remove my bed, cut, remove the pads, replace the bed, weld, then paint......I took my pickup home, layed on my back and scrapped off the pads, cleaned the residue paste off with gasoline, preped the surface, painted.....all in 1½ hours.

Service Managers by direction and nature are prone to get rid of the customer with the least amount of stress upon the Service Manager. This is not a game. This is real life with real attitudes.

Spend a few bucks for new plugs prior to 35K miles. That's approx once every 2½-3 years. No biggy.

 

Dazz Very good points! Its amazing the length the dealer will go to to get rid of a customer's complaint without really fixing it. See, he got rid of you and only because your proactive and can see throught his little game. But the other guys who rely on him are out of luck. Like you said, some may be in luck to have found a dealer that can be trusted. So far the two or three I have been to are loosers.

Now jpdadeo has a good point on whether or not the seafoam will get the job done. Its got to be fairly tight where the plug extension resides. The broken plug pictures we have seen had a lot of carbon/rust on the shaft. Can the seafoam or decarbonizing treatments reach that?

 

Since the seat of a spark plug is mated to the engine head so as to not allow any escape of compression I question if any liquid of any kind can seep down past the Motor Seat and go on to the plug Ground Shield where carbon may of adhered to the shield-engine head.

FYI: I have 4995 miles on my '04 (no I don't drive much). I pulled #5 plug. It had a lot of exit touque to it, but came out OK. It had rust on the Ground Shield, but it wiped away with a paper towel. No carbon (yet).

 

aight guys i dont know if my post rubbed yall wrong wasnt meant to. what i'm saying is all these post are overwhelming alot of info indeed. now lets get to the individual level, the me's and you's. excluding yall that has already done the change our decition is rather mind bogging. understand this. untell this post i wasnt worring about sparkplugs for another 85000 miles.on top of that i didnt know they changed disgns. now i dont think i'm alone on this. now i've wade through all this info now i got to make a decission on what to do. now for yall the math might have been rather easy, for me it isnt and my dealer didnt make it any easier by saying they know nothing about this problem. heres the math if the sparkplugs last past warranty its my baby so got to get this resolved before then. simple 1+1 here. heres where its tricky. i dont have the money to put out for getting this spark plug out if i break it myself. so then i got to take the heads off myself{ i believe i've done voided the warranty by now} now something else breaks oh noooo. now a $160 job has really grown. the $160 is what the dealer will charge to change them out. but now i can do it for $70 if i do it myself and nothing else goes wrong.
spend a few bucks every 3 yrs thats $70 every 3 yrs. come on thats not a few bucks.if price does'nt go up in the 9-10 years it takes to get the 100000 mile mark. thats $210 for SPARKPLUGS, give me a break. on the regular 5.4 you can change them every year for 11 years and have spent that much. pretty much everthing looks about the same as my 97 5.4 so i think i can handle it. there is some that has never changed a spark plug where do they turn? spend $160 to have ford do it every 3 years, thats $480 for SPARKPLUGS.by the time they spent the $480 they should be spending the first $160. tell me if i'm wrong? ford says change spark plugs at 1000 miles. why would any body change out a perfectly good firing sparkplug? something is wrong w/ it... so why should we spend all this money on faulty spark plugs?? or did i forget how math works?

 

But my math says that a few dollars spent (less than $100) to do my change out before 25K miles beats what the dealer will charge me to do it. Thats because I am familiar with doing the work myself. I did take the chance of possibly breaking one but felt I would not at this low mileage (22.5K). So my gamble paid off. Now I know as long as I do some maintenance the possibility of a broken plug is about zero. And it dosen't have to cost me every time I do it other than the labor if I just pull the plugs and clean em up. That way I stay ahead of the "possible" problem.

After the warranty is out then the bet is still on as to who foots the bill if a plug is broken off to pull the head. The only instance that has been brought up was a bill for over $1700 and the dealer did not cover any of it. Also remember that most dealers have not seen the 04/05/06 models with high mileage. So they can say, there has been no problem we are aware of (yet) where there are rumors of problems elsewhere.

One other thing is the "change the plugs at 100,000 miles". I just don't believe a spark plug will have its original performance at that mileage. The mfg. and dealer can say what it wants but I am not a believer. Yes the new style plugs are an outrage in pricing. First price I got was $17 each from the dealer. That was dumb of me just for asking. I should know better. What you spend over a few years on plugs (mine were about $70, shipping included) is not a really big deal to me. Heck, I put that much in the gas tank on a fill up these days. If $70 breaks your bank then maybe it would be better to not have a vehicle at all. As time goes on I bet the plug pricing drops as other plug manufacturers present their version of the PZT2FEF4 plug. It will happen. But not soon enough for all of us.

 

Exiled

I did not mean to infer that changing spark plugs was a must at my suggested timing or mileage. What I do support is that plugs be changed at the pleasure of the vehicle owner. This goes with when you paint your house, wax your pickup, water your lawn, or get haircuts. It is a matter of the person involved.

Those who like quality maintenance, and have read the many posts on the new Ground Shield plug, and inherited carbon build up, will change their plugs early, well before 100,000 miles, or even before 50,000 miles. Those who want to go the 100,000 miles recommendation by Ford may do so at their pleasure. It is up to the vehicle owner and the owner's choice of lifestyle.

Me? I have the $70.00 or so to spare every 3 years. I spend more than that at one hand of Blackjack, or lawn weed/feed. It is all a matter of choice.

 

so what about setting the gap on this new plug? i had to have mine replaced two times and the mechanic who done the job said u have to gap them. i know this is a little off topic but no one has said anything about setting the gap

 

Dazz i'm with you ,been with you and the other guys. if its what you want to do, by all means do it. heres my postion, this sparkplug thing can become a money pit real fast. not to mention that my wife has a 04 fx4 and i have a 05 fx4, so my course of action is doubled. you know i feel like this if you want to buy a pink truck then as soon as you get home paint it yellow go for it i have nothing against you doing to your truck what you wish,my thing is it dont make sence to pull out a good sparkplug and put in a nother just like it. if you break it how are you going to explain it to ford?" i changed my sparkplug out 75000 miles early"
hamradio, no $70 wont break my bank but the cost of getting the groundshield removed if it breaks could. plus as i stated i have 2 trucks that will be $140 bucks. yea i see other manufactures dropping the price when they make an after market w/ cheeper stainsteel groundshields. but is that any better? yes we have 2 trucks and they are not pleasure rides they are worked everyday my wifes is a vet, she makes barn calls daily on cattle and horses that truck is her biggest tool. i raise cattle so you see i work mine everyday, hauling live stock,feed,hay,fertiliuzer,seed. my 97 5.4 went 105000 miles on its factory plugs no problems at all.in 2004 my wife started her own busyness need a truck you know where we looked, and thought we where still getting low maintence trucks, even told so, just to have to turn around and fork out $150-$500 every 3 years? uh huh. so i turn to my dealer to see best course of action he dont have a clue what i'm taking about has not had one broken in his shop. i called to every dealer in this half of the state and none has heard of it either, all said they have changed sparkplugs over 50000 miles 3 dealers said changed at over 100000 miles no problem. now is this ford being coy and hush,hush, when the dealer can try to talk me into letting them change the plugs. iu,ve read all kinds of stuff this morning and cant find no bullentins about this put out by ford.

 

Well, think of it this way...

If you wait until 100k miles, you WILL have to pay the dealer to remove the heads because the plugs WILL be siezed. There is no maybe, no what ifs, just plain and simple, the plugs will be siezed and you will have to pay atleast $1700+ to have them removed. Remember, thats $1700 now, in say 5 yrs from now it will be well over $2000.

Now then, if you change your plugs 4 times at 25k mile intervals you will with 99% probability avoid siezing a plug. 25k mile intervals is very reasonable intervals to change your plugs, and sure you will spend $70 each time, but really I would rather make 4 payments of $70 rather than a one time of $1700+.

Its one of those pay me now or pay me later things, except the pay me later substantially outweighs the pay me now part...

This is of course assuming Ford will continue to ignore the problem and never correct the issue. But, given Fords long long history of ignoring problems, I will not rely on them to come up with a fix and never change my plugs in the mean time.

See, that wasnt that complicated.

 

If you wait until 100k miles, you WILL have to pay the dealer to remove the heads because the plugs WILL be siezed. There is no maybe, no what ifs, just plain and simple, the plugs will be siezed and you will have to pay atleast $1700+ to have them removed. Remember, thats $1700 now, in say 5 yrs from now it will be well over $2000.













how do you even think of these things?

how many plug changes on modular engines have you done? i have never had one with seized plugs or one that ended in a 1700.00 repair.

 

The plugs I took out at 25,776K can easily be cleaned up and reinstalled; there’s nothing at all wrong with the electrodes.

check um out
http://www.f150online.com/forums/sho...ce#post1885953

 

whats up with the number 4 plug?

 

Again, we are refering to 5.4 3v engines, not your traditional 4.6 2V, 4.6 4V, or 5.4 2v. Now ask yourself that question again. How many 5.4 3V sparkplugs have you changed, how many high mileage 5.4 3v spark plugs have you changed?

Im not ******* the mod motors, hell I bought one. But I dont think anyone could have predicted this issue would rear its ugly head. Let me guess, you also deny the spark plugs blowing out of 5.4 2V Lightning engines(atleast pre 11/12/02 4 thread Lightnings). The post 11/12/02 engines had 8 threads and eliminated this issue. Spark plugs have always been an issue on the 4.6 2v mod motors as well, mainly blowing out. So you cannot tell me that you have never seen spark plug problems with mod motors, because if you did Id say you were either lying or didnt have the experience. The 5.4 3V has a unique problem due to the unique design, its getting siezed over time. I imagine this will sink in once these 5.4 3v reach higher mileage and more and more incidents occur when attempting to change higher mileage plugs. Some just dont see the writing on the wall I guess.

 

At approximately 2K I had a slight miss. It was diagnosed as a bad #4 coil wire and repaired. I’m guessing that’s why the porcelain tip is a different color but I’m not sure

 

[QUOTE=silverXLT5.4]Well, think of it this way...

If you wait until 100k miles, you WILL have to pay the dealer to remove the heads because the plugs WILL be siezed. There is no maybe, no what ifs, just plain and simple, the plugs will be siezed and you will have to pay atleast $1700+ to have them removed. Remember, thats $1700 now, in say 5 yrs from now it will be well over $2000.[QUOTE]

how do you know? how may 04 0r 05 plugs over say 25000 miles have you changed? how many of them where siezed? how many people do you know has had siezed plugs? matter of fact i cant find a dealer that will admit to the problem. and i have not found any body that has had the problem. and your wrong IF i decide to wait for 100000 miles and this thing comes to life then i'll take it to the dealer pay say $200 and have them change them saved myself $10 -$?.00 and if they break it they'll have to fix it. now that is'nt to complicated is it? where is the wall w/ the writing on it? i do not mind reading. its my hobby.