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Only 20k Out Of Spark Plugs?

dcpppf

Ready to race!
So I had noticed a slight hesitation/stutter under heavy load (3/4 - WOT) in 4th, and 6th gear specifically. First noticed it being just a single stutter, then over the weekend noticed it turn in to a few rapid ones and a small afterfire sound from the exhaust.

I broke out VCDS and ran some logs. Had misfires in cylinders 1 and 4 in those conditions (counters got up to around 5 or 6). Shuffled coil packs and no changes. Then shuffled spark plugs and bingo.

I've got NGK BKR7EIS in for my apr stage II mk6 GTI that are about 2.5 years old with 20k miles on them. My coil packs are red tops and are 8 years old with 60k on them.

Is 20k miles typical for a set of spark plugs or does anyone have any ideas on what may be causing abnormally high wear/premature failing of the plugs? Thanks in advance.
 

Joe_Mama

Autocross Champion
Did you check and make sure they gapped properly at .028
 

dcpppf

Ready to race!
They were gapped appropriately when I installed them... but I checked the gaps while shuffling them last night and they were all around 0.046" (all within 0.001" of that at least). So yeah just wearing incredibly fast... At least that seems incredibly fast to me lol.
 

Joe_Mama

Autocross Champion
Do you drive the car hard? Some people who track their cars or drive hard a lot like to change plugs every 10-20k.

I thought those plugs are copper so they wear faster but I could be wrong
 

dcpppf

Ready to race!
They are iridium plugs, but nope don't drive the car hard as far as I'm concerned. Deff no auto-x's or anything like that where the "hard driving" would be more than say 10-20 seconds at any given time if that is relevant lol.

Just interesting to me. For whatever reason I was thinking plugs usually had like a 50-60k mile lifespan, and even then replacing was considered preventative.

Say I did forget to re-gap these and I installed at the factory 0.032"... Would that cause MORE/faster wear or less wear? Spark plugs are cheap so I don't really care if I have to change them every other year. Just trying to learn.
 

Joe_Mama

Autocross Champion
I don't think gapping them improperly to that degree would cause premature wear, no. Sparks plugs usually wear faster because they aren't in a happy environment. Fuel quality, fuel delivery, not torqued properly, dirty combustion chamber, dirty air, carbon build up... Etc

Did you take any picture of the plugs?
 

dcpppf

Ready to race!
Nope but I can when I pull them tomorrow. Again, far from an expert, but I thought looking tan/mocha was a good sign and I do think they fit that bill. Will follow up tomorrow evening/wednesday, but i'd say they looked close to this photo. Maybe a bit more tan where that arrow is drawn, but rest looks accurate. dark/black first thread, but tan/light electrodes.

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GolNat

Autocross Champion
These cars just go thru some plugs and coil packs.

I was getting misfires a few weeks ago. My coil packs and plugs had about 20k on them. All tuned miles with the last 8k being K04.
 

Grabbit

Go Kart Champion
Not unheard of. When running tunes pulling more timing, these things wear out quicker. For reference, APR recommends changing plugs on their K04 setup every 15k miles.
 

dcpppf

Ready to race!
K cool... Thanks for the reassurance that nothing is "abnormal". Plugs are easy for sure, and with how often I have to keep up with them on the bikes it's no big deal as far as i'm concerned. Just surprised lol. I'll check the new ones after 10k, and either start changing them every 10k or every 15k to keep ahead of it.
 

GolNat

Autocross Champion
K cool... Thanks for the reassurance that nothing is "abnormal". Plugs are easy for sure, and with how often I have to keep up with them on the bikes it's no big deal as far as i'm concerned. Just surprised lol. I'll check the new ones after 10k, and either start changing them every 10k or every 15k to keep ahead of it.

Buy them from FCPeuro so you can trade them in towards new ones. Do the same with coil packs.
 

Thumper

Autocross Champion
Not unheard of. When running tunes pulling more timing, these things wear out quicker. For reference, APR recommends changing plugs on their K04 setup every 15k miles.

Yup, the factory maintenance on the TTRS says to change them every 30k. I've got almost 15k on my plugs in the R right now and plan to swap them after my last two track weekends. Meant to change them when I did coil packs but was not thinking ahead and was so excited APR finally released the coils.

Plugs in a Camry or POS Chevy will go 50K or more, but a tuned boosted engine is going to need new plugs regularly.
 
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