In the Murphy's Law book....

If you have an intermittent light miss miss on a v8 and want to look at the plugs, the ONE plug you can't get to because it's directly behind a header tube will be THE one that's bad... Right?


Excuse my rant, but I swear, me and spark plugs lately... Grr.... Another one: So the wife's car needs a tune up. It has a V6 mounted sideways. The front three plugs are piece o' cake. The back three are nearly inaccessible... There isn't enough room between the motor and firewall for me to even get a hand on the plugs.

A friend of mine had a v-twin motorcycle that required dropping the motor part way down to remove the front plug because the frame tube was so close.

I say we should make a new law: Whenever an engineer designs something that requires a major pain in the arse amount of work just to access a simple maintenance item, HE should be required to personally show up and do it for you. You suppose that would make them consider stuff like this? Oy.

Ok, rant over.

hey Rand

Yeah, that does suck. So is your wifes car a Toyota Camry? If so you need to take the intake plenum off to get to the plugs. It's really not too hard to do after that. I know of, but never worked on some Domestic motors that you need to undo a motor mount to rotate the engine forward.

The problem is design engineers aren't always given these constraints so they become service techs or engineers nightmares. Engines are also adapted to different chassis that cause spacial problems. Bodies are designed smaller for weight savings and aerodynamics which add to this problem. Either more labor hours are needed to remove the engine (appears to be your case) and maybe special tools are needed.

Try a Ford Aerostar van with a V-6... 2 front left plugs are done from the engine compartment, 2 front right plugs are done from underneath, and the 2 rear plugs are done through a tiny hole in the passenger compartment. Add a cap, rotor and wires and you have a 5 to 6 hour tune up job.


Or a V-8 Chevy Monza. The dealership would drill holes in the inner fender to get to the spark plugs, then fill them in with rubber plugs.

That sucks! My wifes Maxima has a V6 and changing the plugs is simple, about a hour job. We used to have a VW Corrado and you had to lift the engine about 6 inches to change the starter. WTF?