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

Nice contribution.
Yah, putting the new plugs in always makes me nervous. I always turn the plugs counter-clockwise and let them 'drop' into the threads before tightening.

 

Thanks so much for the write up. Just did my plugs on my 2015 sport with 72000 km. Everything went OK. Passenger side was a breeze. Front drivers side I was cursing to get the coil harness back on the coil. But I screwed on the firewall drivers coil pack. I thought the bolt was going in fine and not cross threaded. But it sure appears I cross threaded the hole. The bolt threads are fine but I think the hole threads are buggered. The bolt does not tighten down, but is kind of snug. How much doo doo am I in? Do i need to fix this immediately? I dont own a tap set and I think I'd be very nervous to do it myself. I still can't believe I did it, and it was the last bolt! I test drove truck and things seem alright. Any help is appreciated.

 

probably a heli-coil will work if it needs repair.

 

So here's a mystery for you other Taco owners!

2014 Tacoma V6 with 80,XXX on the clock, purchased at 64,XXX. I purchased from a previous Offroad Mechanic Supervisor who kept the truck in immaculate shape.

The truck was running a bit rough so I've been doing some maintenance that I've been postponing since moving cross-country. Today I tackled the sparkplugs. I purchased the magnetic swivel spark plug socket/extension and I cannot recommend that tool enough. I've done numerous spark plug changes and this is one of the best purchases I've ever made vehicle-wise.

Beginning the job, I noticed that the spark plugs in there were TIGHT and immediately upon ratcheting them out, I began to hear squealing as the rust was turning. Knowing full well after experiences with exhausts, that I loosen and then tighten a bit. All of the passenger side plugs came out! I noticed they were all NGK Iridium, the exact type of plugs I had purchased. I checked the gap and they were 0.050! I replaced them all but with my torque wrench, I got a bit nervous with the 15 ft pounds so I opted to get them nice and tight with my ratchet. As this is my only vehicle, I'm wary about overtightening. Antiseize and dialectric grease were both applied.

Driver side was much easier than I had anticipated. The front plug was a bit of a pain to unplug, but once I got it out, the rest of the job went great. Upon removing the other plugs, they were also NGK! The gaps on the old plugs were .049 to .052 and dirty!

So question: on a vehicle that has never been offroaded, and with only 80,XXX miles on the clock, why would the old replaced plugs be so worn down already? Did Toyota wisen up and begin using the same spark plugs on both sides? Did the previous owner just simply overgap them WAY too much? Here's some pictures below!

 

There is a number of things that could have gone on here. Toyota, from the factory, puts in 2 different plugs, 3 on each side, so the previous owner had already changed the plugs once and just put NGK all around which is normal. Plugs, according to the manual, should be changed every 40,000 miles I believe so you with 80k I am not surprised they are that warned down (which really is still not a lot). They are "supposed " to be gapped perfectly out of the box but that never happens and most people gap them when they come out of the box and then put them in like you did. A truck does not need to go off road to have engine wear. As for the tightness of the plugs, a mechanic's truck is also usually about getting the job done quick and that can happen.

 

i bought my truck with 39k and it's just shy of 47k now. i thought that maybe the previous owner never changed the plugs, so i bought some $4.99 Denso K20HR-U11 plugs and gapped them to 0.041 according to post 1.

I checked the manual and it has it at 0.043 so i re-gapped them to 0.042-0.043

these are the original plugs. NGK on the drivers side and Denso on the passenger.

the gaps look pretty big, since the electrodes are worn. i checked them
NGK gap= 0.054
Denso gap= 0.049

 

Hey all, new here. I just bought a '15 TRD Off Road private party. Previous owner had paperwork for oil changes at regular intervals but nothing else, so I just finished the spark plugs. Was super easy thanks to this write up, I am not super mechanically inclined and it took a buddy and I just over an hour to do it. The thing is, the truck is at 120k and I pulled out 3 Densos and 3 NGK's, so probably original plugs, which is a little scary. Worst one was gapped to .07 or so.

Super glad I did it and big thanks to the OP for the write up.

 

Welcome!

 

Thanks to Chris4x4 for the excellent write up. This ain't rocket science...but a good tutorial makes it so much easier. Got this done along with PCV & air filter replacement.

 

Today, I replaced my spark plugs for the first time EVER. I made it to 118k miles. The engine was running fine so I never thought anything about it. The spark plugs looked a little warn but were still working fine. It really speaks to the quality of the Densos and NGK plugs.

 

Awesome write-up @chris4x4. Question as I'm growing impatient and starring at a phone screen doesn't help.

Did someone do a write-up on how to change the plug wires?

TIA

 

There is no distributor, so there are no plug wires. The coil is over each plug. Do you mean the wires connected to the coils? That’s part of the wiring harness, I’d be reluctant to mess with that.

 

I realized it's actually the coil that I was looking for and not plug wires. Thanks though!

 

Excellent write up. Much appreciated Chris. Decided to do this at 70K miles. No issues other than the closest to the bumper on the driver's side which was PIA to unclip. Glad I did as the gaps on the originals are as much as 0.059. Also cleaned my MAF sensor and replaced the air filter. My taco is much more responsive now. I've included an invoice to anyone who wants to do this job and wants to save a little more. Each plug was $2.76 from Tustin Toyota and free shipping with orders $75+.

 

Thanks for putting this write-up together. I need to get mine changed soon.

 

MPG went way up, and overall performance was better for sure.
I sold at just shy of 200k for a (2019) 3rd Gen. I gotta say, I miss the 2nd Gen V6...

 

So I bought my 2014 TRD OR w/ 110k miles off of my FIL. FIL said he’d took good care of the truck, and so far, it looks to be true. However, I noticed there weren’t any spark plug changes in the pile of paperwork and vehicle records he handed me, so I began to suspect that maybe the OEM plugs were still in the truck.

I decided to take some time off for the holidays and finally got around to doing the spark plugs. Sure as shit, my suspicions were correct. Truck currently has 120k miles on it and it still had the OEM plugs in it

The tutorial definitely made the plug change go smoothly. A few of the plugs were in there pretty good, but I was able to get them out with a little bit of love. 1hr or so later, I have new denso plugs in the truck now. See pics below for the old plugs and their worn down gap measurements.



Worst two plugs below…





I will highly recommend a magnetic 5/8 plug socket extension, a few u-joint drive adapters and a stubby rachtet. Made the job go much more smoothly. The truck now has much better acceleration and idles much better now. Glad I took a little bit of my day to swap em out.

 

bookmarked

 

I did my spark plugs yesterday and thanks to Chris's tutorial it all went well took me about two hours. The passenger side took me about 20 mins. the drivers side was way longer. That front coil wiring harness was a PITA but finely got it off and was worried about putting it back on but it went on easier then it came off. I couldn't get the Denso plugs locally and the NGK's were like 10 buck plus tax locally so I got them on line from Partsavitar for $6.92 each including tax. I gaped them to .043 thou and used never seize and torqued them to 14 ft/pd. The plugs on the passenger side were the Denso and the drivers side were NGK. I have 96,985km on my 2010 Tacoma. So my plugs were not changed at the 48000km service. Now my Denso plugs that came out were .054 thou to .055 thou and the NGK were .048 thou to.049 thou which is different then what most of the guys are saying here. Most say that the NGK plugs are worn more then the Denso plugs. My total cost was $41.52 and the local dealership quoted me $236.17 parts and labor, so I saved $194.65. Again THANKS CHRIS for the write up and the pictures it sure did help.

 

I made a mistake. The NGK plugs were .054 to .055 thou and the Denso plugs were .048 to .049 thou. I went and checked them again, sorry for the mix up.