Rating Summary
“Good replacement for OEM ”
- a car owner, fuel conscious, car enthusiast, a mechanic, fixing cars, cost-conscious, a bargain hunter, value conscious, practical
- Pros
- Platinum Tip, Copper Core, Suppressor, Comes with sealing gasket
- Cons
- Not multi-electrode
Autolite Platinum Spark Plugs —
The last time I had my plugs changed for me (around 40,000 miles) at the dealer, and though they used the original OEM parts, they charged quite a bit for this service....now my car has a bit more than 80,000 miles on it (actually 81075) and I wanted to replace them myself this time and save some money.
The original plugs were NGK BKUR6ET-10, and this is also what they put in a the dealer at 40,000 miles. I found an equivalent platinum plug in the Autolite Platinum model 3923 and I picked up 2 packages (they come in packages of qty-2 each, I needed qty-4). The main difference appears to be that the NGK plug has 4 electrodes whereas the Autolite plug has a single electrode.
Getting at spark plugs has gotten harder over the years...though my car has an inline engine which is normally easier than on a "V" to get at the plugs, in my case the plugs are behind a large intake manifold which makes accessing and changing the plugs more of a hassle...so people probably don't change their plugs nearly as often as in the past (plus they are easy to forget about). That also makes it a good idea to get a longer life plug, and the Autolite Platinum promises to be that way, with a platinum tip. They also have a copper core (copper prices being at a premium these days) which is supposed to help conductivity. Of course spark plugs are no longer as inexpensive as they once were (I remember spending $0.99 on spark plugs for previous cars; these were about $7.90 for qty-2 plugs (roughly $4.00 apiece). Still if I only change them every 40,000 miles, that isn't so bad ($16.00 every 40,000 miles).
Take a look at your old plugs before discarding them; you can often see how your engine is running by looking at telltale signs of the material deposited on the old plugs so you can see if you need to make any adjustments.
Autolite Platinum Spark Plugs
