How To: Spark Plug Change (1 GR-FE)

Don't let that go straight to your head....

 

I know my place, and wont cause trouble. You are a credit to the site

 

bahaha...... nice touch.

 

You cost me some money this morning. I read this entire thread and decided to run to the dealer to buy some plugs. Which then turned into a full synthetic oil change and air filter change.

Spark plugs only took me about an hour (thanks to the OP) and the rest another hour or less.

Sweat my butt off but my truck is running damn good.

Thank you sir!

 

Great writeup, I just finished this project. Went smoothly. Thanks!

 

thanks for the great info. very helpful.

 

Trying 100K Plug! Unless you're an everyday mechanic (I'm not) I suggest you find someone you trust and pay them to install the plugs. I read other posts stating 4 hours and 2 hrs if you take breaks; rediculous. My friend/experienced mechanic had them changed in 45 minutes (give or take 10 minutes) at $40 an hr I paid $30 for installation. Is it really worth your time and aggravation; not to mention potentially breaking something? Make sure to use anti-seize on plugs.

It was time to change the dealer plugs for the 2nd time so I started calling around again. I'm not content with changing the spark plugs every 30K as dealer suggests and they claim you'll damage your engine if you use iridium plugs. I finally got someone in service at another dealership and told him I wanted to switch over to iridium 100K plug.

He (Toyota service) claimed he was reading the chart right in front of him at the dealership stating I could use iridium plugs and he also mentioned his Toy Sequoia called for the same. He stated “I currently have 118K on my Sequoia using iridium plugs (changed at 30K).” He did state use Denso or NGK plugs only!

I went a step further for.70C a plug & ordered 6 NGK (LASER) Iridium Plugs (don't recall, but believe I paid about $8 per plug w/NAPA discount). I was hoping to possibly improve gas mileage as well but it is too early to tell but rough guess is no change at all. My truck is running great. Both sets of factory plugs looked like they were wearing great and probably could have kept them in for at least another 20k miles both times. (I kept the old spark plugs in the event a problem does occur because truck is under platinum warranty; I could simply change them out before bringing the truck in, but I don’t see that happening.)

The dealers are constantly trying to get you in for general maintenance since these vehicles rarely break down. I initially ordered my truck through a family member that was a manager of a dealership and he stated their service dept only made about $27K for an entire month. He claimed when he managed for Saab they would do 150K in service. Note that was Dec of 2004. Most dealerships have gone up $15 to $30 an hour. My dealer $16 if I remember correctly (89 to 106). Good luck. Hope this helps!

 

Great job on this how-to - saved me a lot of time and money.

 

Changed my plugs last weekend. Put in a set of Denso Iridiums $7.25/plug. Took me about an hour and a half. Should be a bit quicker if I have to do it again (I was being extremely careful and following the WRITE-UP to the letter). Had about 63K on the original plugs and they had burned down to about .055 but looked good, the truck was still running good too but the MPGs weren't to making me happy. That front left plug was a real pain in the butt, Had a real hard time getting the connector off, and putting it on wasn't a piece of cake either. Left some blood on the engine but my wallet seemed to be pretty happy. My new plugs were gapped at .040 out of the box so I didn't mess with them. Thanks again for the great write-up. It sure took a lot of the unknowns out of the process. Truck running great! Watching MPGs for expected improvement.

 

A quarter turn past snug would be about 15 ft/lbs. My torque wrench only went down to 20 ft/lbs so I didn't use it.

 

The rumor mill goes that Toyota does business with both manufacturers for long time and want to keep them equally happy.

 

Who cares what the Toyota put in for plugs and why. You're changing them anyway if you noticed this. As long as the vehicle ran well. Constantly see people talking about this & wasting peoples time having to sift through. People are using the site as a how to & advice.

 

I'm chilled just fine thanks; sorry if you took my comment out peperspective. LOL Take care.

 

45 min ? I call it BS. It takes me 45 min just to vacuum, wash and blow dry engine before I start removing sparkplugs. You would not want all that dirt collected on the top of engine to fall inside the cylinder after you remove sparkplug , would you?