Spend the extra $$$ on NGK Iridium?

[Matthew Ross]

Hey everyone,

I have a 2009 Civic EX with 99,000 miles. I’m going to change the spark plugs next week. Honda recommends NGK Iridium plugs, which are about $10 each. I could just as easily buy Denso Platinum plugs for $2.50 each. Is it worth the extra $30 for the NGKs? As a side note, changing the plugs on my car is SUPER EASY. As soon as you open the hood, the coil packs are just staring at you. If the plugs were super hard to get to, I would just buy the longest lasting ones so save time.

Prices are based on rockauto.com

Topic

[Lorrin Barth]

Plain plugs are fine – the just don’t last as long.

[Paul]

I believe the NGK Iridium plugs have a special electroplated coating on the threads that acts as a dry, one-time use, anti-seize compound. I don’t know if the Denso plugs have a similar coating or not.

Also, I would check the gap with a wire gauge to verify that it matches the OEM spec – should be listed on a sticker under the hood.

[dan jan]

Hi there,
Buying NKG or Denso is much more important than the type of plug, NKG and Denso make higher quality product no matter what compared to a company like autolite. I heard on diffrent forums that if you have a Honda, Denso or NKG is a must. Denso is OE for alot of Honda parts anyway, why not use them.

Double platinum usually lasts longer than Iridium XI but on amazon the difference arent much alot of times ( in case you have access to Amazon ).

As long as its platinum or iridium buy one that is cheapest shouldnt be a big deal aside from that.

Older hondas come with double platnium and they should be good for 80-100k versus iridium XI 60-80k.’
The “XI” is performance oriented, probably mostly marketing anyway.

Cheers,

Always use a sparkplug socket if you have never done the job, the build in magnet literally will save your sanity.

I went with iridium XI as the price diffrence was less than a dollar per piece on my 2000 accord.

[college man]

I would put whatever is recommended by Honda in the engine.
The originals went a 100k 🙂

[Tom]

I have found that Honda engines are very picky about what plugs they will run on. Mate, in the grand scheme of things, you are looking to save $30 on a set of plugs. The originals ran for 100k miles, and about 5 years. That is only $6 a year. If your engine runs just the tiniest bit less efficiently with the cheaper plugs, you will lose way more than that $6 / year in fuel economy costs. I say, put the plugs Honda calls for in it, and be done with it.

[Rereonehundred]

I really like the NGK iridium plugs for their appropriate technology. With high energy ignition systems and large spark plug gaps the spark will blast a lot of metal off the electrodes and the plugs will wear out. But the iridium is a very tough special metal that doesn’t get “spark eroded”.

I’ve got 200 000 km on my factory NGK iridium plugs, and they still look great, and the gap still at specification.

They are worth every penny of 10 $ each. But psychologically I’m used to 2 $ a plug, but that was the old days for a ratty Champion that was probably bad in the box.

The attached is an inspection image at 187 000 km. I do clean the corona ring off, tidy the plug a bit, and re-install with a very small smear of copper antiseize.

I don’t think this engine has misfired once in 200 000 km.

Attachments:

• Coupeat187000km.JPG

[george gonzalez]

At that mileage and with the plug easy to reach, I’d go with the cheaper ones. With those miles you might end up changing plugs before they wear out, due to oil deposits.

If the car was one of those, like the VW 4411 of yore, where you have to drop out the engine to change the plugs, the answer might be different. There was also some Chevy where you had to undo an engine mount and jack up the engine to get one plug out.

[Lorrin Barth]

I come from another forum for modified vehicles. The owners go to the dyno always looking for more horsepower. These cars originally came with iridium plugs. The owners run copper plugs because they say they work better.

I put copper plugs in my car to see if I could tell any difference and they were the dreaded champion brand. I could tell no difference. I went back to iridium plugs just because I didn’t want to fool with spark plugs every 15,000 miles.

[Bill]

I would replace the plugs with whatever was OEM. Honda has engineers that are more knowledgeable and spend more money on testing than anyone here.

[Author]

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