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Other than tires I have never had a car, truck, boat or motorhome in a shop my entire life. Too many horror stories about repair shops and this way I know the work is done correctly.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Back when I was a kid, teenager and early 20s I used to change them every 10,000 miles on all of my various cars. It's nice that with modern engines the last 100,000 miles. I still do them, but paid to have them done when we had a 1987 Aerostar. That one required taking off the front wheels and inner fenders to get to the back two. Fortunately we only had to do it once before trading it in. Until recently I had a 1972 El Camino, 350 V8 and like the old days, changed them every 10,000 miles. Interesting that the price of plugs hasn't gone up much in all these years, but the labor has.
I have an 05 Ranger with the 4.0l engine. I had to jack my truck up, remove the tire and splash guard to access my passenger side plugs. Once I got the stuff off, they were easy to change. I had a Firebird once and the only way to change the four rear plugs was to raise it on a lift.
A word of advice, locking extensions make it so much easier, especially on those plugs that sit in a well.
Apparently there are quite a few do it your self folks here.
Well done.
Some live in apartments or condos and doing such in parking lot is a tad more difficult. Some have not invested in tools.
And yes, the dealership does charge a small fortune to do this.
I have a guy who charges $25.00 per hour. Moonlight. He has tools in his residential garage. Full time day mechanic. I buy the parts. I only use factory OEM plugs and wires. The exact that came with car/truck.
Youtube has great value for doing this. Amazing that people take the time to post such.
I use a breaker bar to ensure the plugs are nice and tight in there
I don't know what kind of car you own but it sounds like you may also want to put a length of pipe, (approximately 12 inchs), on the end of your breaker bar that acts as a cheater bar for that extra leverage to make sure that they are " good and tight"
The last thing you want is to hear is your spark plugs rolling down the road behind you because they worked their way loose.
Fellow as being facetious about the breaker bar. see the smiley?
We all know if you overtighten the ceramic spark plug shell will break.
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