When you first think about getting a car, you will need to get a motor insurance quote. Will it be fully comprehensive? Third party, fire and theft? Or even any driver car insurance. Something you probably will not think about but may need doing in the future is changing/cleaning your spark plugs. Replacing the spark plugs on a car used to be a regular part of overall car care maintenance. It would be quite normal to see a man with his head under the bonnet of the car on a Sunday morning, hands, arms and face covered in grease and dirt carrying out basic car maintenance. Not so long ago cars would need to get a tune-up around every 30,000 miles. And the list of things needing doing would include spark plug replacement.
In 2010 cars are made to go longer, though not a lifetime, without a tune-up. And now we have the luxury of complicated on-board computers and diagnostic equipment to tell us something is wrong. Not everybody has this luxury yet and some will still need to change the spark plugs. Checking or even changing your spark plugs is an easy and quick job. Just by giving the spark plugs a clean or changing them can help improve the performance of your car and also and economy of the car. It will only take 20 minutes to do this small job and it can also save you money at the petrol pumps, it can also reduce your carbon emissions.
Not many tools are needed for this small job. A spark plug socket, ratchet wrench, spark plug gap gauge and a feeler gauge.
Open the bonnet of the car and remove whatever parts necessary in order to get at the spark plugs and HT leads. Identify the leads and disconnect them from the spark plugs by pulling on the connector, but not on the lead. Blow away or brush away any dirt from around the spark plugs. A wire brush was always used but now it’s recommended not to do this as it can cause more damage to the plug. Next unscrew them with the socket and remove them. Take a good look at the end of each plug. It should be a light brown or grey colour. A spark plug which is black, sooty, or oily, may be a warning of a problem developing. Use the feeler blades to check the electrode gap of the new plugs (see your car manufacturer manual to find out what the gap should be). If necessary you should adjust them by carefully bending the side electrode. Spark plugs don’t always have an adjustable gap; if this is the case you can skip this. Next you should put a smear of grease on the threads of each new plug and screw them back into their holes. Use a length of flexible hose to start them off – if you get a spark-plug cross-threaded, the hose will slip before you cause any damage.
Final tightening of the spark plugs should be done using a wrench, otherwise there’s a risk of doing them up either too lose or too tight. Reconnect the HT leads and you are ready to start the engine. If it won’t start, it’s likely you’ve connected the HT leads in the wrong order. So just replace them in the correct order.