I agree. It took them days to change mine. They almost had to pull the head. I'm not going out to say one plug is better than the other. But after that horrible plug change experience and hearing about people breaking their 2nd set of Motorcrafts even with Fords anti-seize recomendations...I went with Champions. So far so good!

 

Sall, where did you hear of people breaking their second set ? I could use that info, -for the file lol.

 

Here's one terrible circumstance. There's many others. Search here and google it for other information.

Yea, lets sell these ^^^^ to everyone we can

The only reason for an individual to push a bad product is to profit at everyone elses exspense. That's low, bottom of barrel dirtbagging. These people are the scum of the earth IMO.

 

I have 3 great dealerships in my area and 2 of them would agree with Jim. The other one I haven't spoken to in a while. It is not as bad as the naysayers would like you to believe. It still sucks that the plugs were designed that way but life goes on.

 

Mornin' y'all.

I have 7 within easy reach - they all agree with Power Kid

Jim - yer sample space is too limited - Federal Mogul's/Jim Allen's data is presumably nationwide. It's expected that there will indeed be 'Oases of Expertise & Competency', but it is by no means universal or common, imho.

My admittedly unscientific polling appears to confirm this. You should have seen the looks on each of the Service Advisor's faces when queried about 3V plugs. Wish I'd had a camera, lol. Perhaps they all suck, see a great revenue opportunity, or have 'bottom 10%'ers fer techs?

Sorta like this:

 

Tell me how it is possible then that me and several I have sent to my dealer can drive into the shop and two hours later drive out with a new set of plugs? One of these had 113,000 on them and another had 133,000. And before you are too critical of guys using power tools, Quintin is a tech that does this for a living and he says that is the way he does them. So, before you debunk what others say, you may want to do some more reading and research.

 

Were those Canadian dealerships? Nuff said.

 

Hopefully the new Champions my dad installed in my mom's 06 Explorer 4.6 work out ok. The originals were pulled, all but 1 or 2 broke and were completely disintegrated at the tips. This after maybe 75k km's? Seemed to run fine prior. Runs fine now too, at $50 a plug, it better damn well. I'm pretty sure that was the price per Champion. Warrant to I think. Time will tell.

 

It seems to me that far more people on this site have gotten them out without breakage or if one or two broke, they were able to get them out with proper tools. Some tools were even homeade for $2.86. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said who's survey it was. Of course, they are looking for horror stories and sure, there are plenty of them out there. Mostly stories of people that are not informed and think they are just changing a set of plugs. The design is stupid, should have never happened but it did. It just is not the major disaster it is made out to be if approached correctly. Very few things on these vehicles are as simple as they used to be.

Besides, it was part of your scare tactic that worked on my mind and caused me to change them at 65,500 when I could have gone much longer!

 

While that plug does look ugly, that is surely not a plug failure but instead something wrong with the timing or fuel levels. If a platinum plug looks like that, I can't even Imagine what the Motorcraft plug would have looked like. I have a dyno tune on my PCM, I'm not worried about that kind of crap happening.

And talk about low-ball dirtbagging: Ford finds a major problem, puts out a TSB to avoid fixing under warranty, makes a special removal tool, and recommends replacing the crappy plugs with the same thing. Turning a poor design into profits and labor for their dealerships to rape the consumers' wallet. Sorry, I'm not buying that one.

 

At Least they work. Hey, we all want a better solution. NGK's been working on it for awhile, - I've heard they actually have a team, but their not going to just throw some half *** design out there and call it good.

You can buy anything you want, call it what you want (I did), - what ever makes you happy, but I'm not selling. Summarizing the facts and posting a opinionated conclusion, just like everyone else. It's okay, bite the bullet if you must, someones gottuh do it right, the more the better... Post the results so all may benefit, -good or bad.

 

True dat! Hopefully NGK can put out something quality.

 

I've read somewhere on here that NGK has abandoned making a plug for the 3 valves.

Honestly, some you people harp on the failure rate fo the plugs, but they work flawlessly. You should rephrase your failure rate term and call it possible separation upon removal. That's the reality of it.

The main problem with vehicle enthusiast forums is the bad situations that arise are unduly amplified.

This issue isn't as bad as some make it out to be. Making a mountain out of a mole hill.

And the thing that gets me is media man JimAllen coming here and belittling jbrew. Very professional.

 

Proabbaly too busy watching that Gold medal hockey game...

 

Well I tryed to change my plugs today 04 f 150 51,236 I had bought the autolite HT15 for replacement. I didnt get to use them because 3 for 3 broke (not the porclain) didnt have the tool so have to wait till tomorrow to continue. So I came back here to search for what plug people were usin to replace them, after 3 for 3 I was gonna take the autolites back but after reading this thread it is almost tellin me nothing. I followed the tsb to the letter even the motorcraft carb cleaner and PBblaster as suggested on this site with no luck whatsoever. I have never liked champion plugs but after this I am considering it. Luckily I dropped them rite back in and truck still runs fine. As a person just lookin for info this thread got way out of hand and didnt do a damn thing for me, when I was lookin for opinions and sucsess all I got was arguments so I am back to square one on this one.