Went to replace my spark plugs and got a surprise (2005 prius)

If he bought E3 plugs and a K&N air filter, you may have had STP oil treatment until your first oil change. Look for Monster Cable speaker wire, or ground straps everywhere on your engine.

 

Means nothing. Like any profession, there are good and NOT so good ones.

 

Funny that you mentioned that. When I bought used Yaris for my kid with 60,000 miles, I decided to check how spark plugs are wearing in their midlife. I was shocked that previous owner replaced the high quality long life OEM NGK or Denso iridium plugs with garbage Bosch +4 platinums. I swapped them as soon as I could. The engine felt smoother after that, but it was probably in my head.

Young people are easily swayed by marketing propaganda. I remember I bought Slick50 once when I was young.

 

Maybe check out the wiring too, hopefully no "improvements" there.

 

Yea, but a car's a lot closer to the ground.

 

a lot of people like to fiddle with aftermarket products. there are many here and many different threads. i don't find this surprising at all.

 

I do not share your dislike of the E3 spark plugs. I have used them in small lawn / garden equipment engines where hard starting or plug fouling was a problem. They have performed better than any OEM plug in those applications.

One rider mower with a 17 HP Briggs engine was hard starting and would misfire at full load, new magneto and new plugs (several sets and brands) produced no better results. I put in a set of E3 plugs and the hard starting and full load misfire disappeared. The E3's have been in that mower for 6 years, still work great.
Had a little 2 cycle Ryobi string trimmer that tended to foul the plug after a few hours use. Various brand plugs of the recommended heat range did not help the situation, I bought my first E3 plug for that tool because of their (at the time) claim never to not foul. It worked as advertized, no fouling, that plug was in that trimmer for 8-10 ? years until the thing wore out.
I have not tried that brand in anything automotive, but in L&G equipment , they are excellent performers.

 

The E3 website is not very friendly. Maybe I gave up too soon, but got the impression their plug longevity is not a big selling point. I would not want a plug that needs to be changed semi-frequently, considering the insane amount of disassembly required to get at the Prius plugs.

 

I have a power washer that's always been tough on a restart. Maybe I'll give an E3 plug a try in it.

 

i like a 60,000 mile plug, before they have a chance to freeze up.

 

...today I finally changed out my plugs at 135k miles. They were not frozen, but grundged up pretty bad. I had no problem getting them turning, but they kept being fairly hard to turn the whole way out almost. All the videos looks like they loosen by fingers once you pop it loose. No way.

 

hey you know wat the toque settings are on the plugs??

 

13 ft.-lb or 18 N-m

 

i don't think many (any?) people document their mods for future users. can't argue it would be nice.

 

A lot of Prius owners try and change items to improve fuel economy or performance (just check out the mods section of Priuschat). Apparently this person didn't know that the OEM spark-plugs are some of the best long-life / most efficient plugs available. I've tried NGK IX performance plugs and they didn't last very long. I'm sticking with the OEM equivalent Denso iridium plugs from now on.

P.S. I do love my K&N drop in filter, I can't believe you took it out and replaced it with paper... We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one...