Quote:
Originally Posted by Clan
For the sake of £12 for genuine volvo plugs on ebay which are 100% known and proved to work properly that's penny pinching for the sake of it !
Back in the day any volvo which had plug problems had NGK or champion plugs in it and the problems were cured by fitting the proper volvo plugs ..
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I hear what you're saying and would agree whole-heartedly about Champion plugs, surprised to hear any NGK was causing problems though.
I'm not saying it can't or could never happen just that it's extremely rare. I have however heard of Volvo plugs failing and experienced (on more than one occasion) Bosch plugs failing. Most memorable time was New Years Eve about 30 years ago when a group of friends and i decided to go down to London just for the road trip and to see the celebrations.
Turned out to be a bit of a damp squib as the celebration areas were cordoned off to vehicles so we turned round and went home.
Thanks to not knowing London very well at the time, i ended up coming back via Luton by which time my car would barely run thanks to the Bosch plugs that had only been in less than 2k miles.
Only plugs available were from a 24/7 Shell garage and those turned out to be Champion plugs in a set of 4 in a blister pack.
They got me home - just - and struggled to work the day after. A set of hotter plugs later (still Bosch) and it was running again for about 5k miles, at which point i had to change them again, this time for NGK and they lasted a lot longer.
It might seem like pointless penny pinching going for NGK plugs but IMHO it's the better choice. We've all heard about genuine Volvo water pumps that are failing in short order these days and the general standard of replacement parts (both genuine and aftermarket) seems to be dropping dramatically in recent years.
When i first got my current 760, it was running quite nicely so the plugs weren't the top of my priority list to check/change. A few months into ownership they did start misfiring slightly. The gap was up to about 1.3-1.4mm on most of them when i checked them, indicating they had been in about 60-70k miles. I did find a receipt for when they were changed about 10 years previously and the mileage on the MoT history tallied with that at about 160k miles (by this point it was on about 216k) and re-gapping them to 0.7mm got rid of the misfire until a new set was fitted.
Those plugs were all NGK - the ones that had been in since Fred Flintstone was in nappies and the replacement set. No problems yet although i did renew them replacement set after 6k miles when i also renewed the plug leads.
Given my experience with Bosch plugs over the years, i doubt they'd still be performing after that length of time.