there's more to life than bright yellow things..
SPARK PLUGS - What brand and type?
- Thread starter Steve84
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X just stands for the gap setting. I thought x stood for .060 . But not sure. Either will work just set to proper gap
Well all done, AC DELCO wires are in too now. Git ripped off for the labor on the wires. But I want to keep in good with this mechanic because he takes my car in every-time right away. Should have charged me only 1/2 hour of labor tops to plug & play 6 wires. he charged me 1 and 1/2 hours instead. Basically $165.00 for labor. Should have done it myself.... Meanwhile I am going to find a backup mechanic.
Anyway like I said those old plugs they removed had BURNT RINGS around the white porcelain. I think its because they were Platinum instead of copper core. He used Bosch last time about 8 years ago.
Just changed the oil and filter myself too this weekend. I used PENNGRADE (original Kendall Green Oil) and a Purolator filter. Only the best will do.
Think about those two sentences a minute. You don't seem to mind getting ripped off because of the convenience factor? I'd make room for your wallet ahead of others, too, if you were going to pay me more than what a job really cost.
But then you would lift the car, crawl under it, drain oil and filter changeout and deal with the recycling of the oil. And you would do this over a quick and easy spark plug wire change out?
Not judging here, but I think the priorities of what you farm out to your "mechanic" isn't what I would call the most cost effective.
Well the thing is I want to have somewhere to go when things arise that I can't fix myself. So I don't want to make waves with this guy. I try to avoid everything I can to not take my car in at all for service. But when it comes to brakes, inspections, etc. He knows my car. He also knows OLD cars. I went to mechanics whereby they did not even know how to work on a carburetor. So I need to keep in good with him for his knowledge. That is how I look at it, I pay for his knowledge.
Yes I will crawl under my car and do oil changes and filter because not only can I do it myself, but I don't trust anyone else changing the oil.
In the end, having this old car and old ones prior saved me tens of thousands $$$ over the years. I was able to buy an almost $500,000 house with the money I saved earning very little money compared to other people. As soon as you drive any new car off the lot, take $3-$5,000 off the value. New cars are money pits that lose value everyday. My car actually rose in value since I bought it. And fixing new cars cost a fortune. Imagine having to replace 4 tires when only 1 tire got a flat? Because there are tire sensors in new cars. Or how about instead of changing a set of spark plug wires for $50.00, you need to replace all your COIL PACKS at $100.00 a pop totaling at least $400.00? No thanks, I'll stick with my old deal. I never bought a brand new car and never will. And I will never own any car newer than 1989.
your going to find a back-up mechanic after getting ripped off for a simple job?. If I were you I'd say I paid for my lesson in being lazy and I'd be seeing the next guy who is going to work on my car every time I look in the mirror...this forum will save you lots of money and frustration and you'll end up with a good collection of tools
Interesting thread. Now I will turn it on it's head and say that ever since I first switched to HEI in my 1968 Firebird 40 years ago- I have been using .060" spark plug gap. That goes for every car I have owned since then and I never ever had any problems. In fact I rarely use new plugs. I clean then with a wire wheel on a bench mounted grinder. The big gap tends to burn very clean such that a quick blast on the wire brush gets them like new. Sometimes I use AC Delco- but mostly I use Champion. They last a long time unless I stupidly break one. I use only Standard Blue Streak cap and rotor as well as MSD heli-coil plug wires. I clean the brass terminals on the cap and rotor and they last forever. I also build my own Q-jets so I am not running factory lean by any means. On bench tests I have made an HEI spark jump over a foot away so I don't worry about an .060" gap. No one has mentioned the reason for platinum plugs. The waste-fire ignition systems where one coil fires two cylinders has a unique characteristic. The polarity switches between the two cylinders and that causes the spark plug electrode to decay. Platinum was found to resist that decay the best and is mandated for those systems. Now Iridium is being used and while more expensive at first over time it is the best value. I changed out the platinum plugs in my '05 Cobalt at 50k with Iridium. I changed them again at 100k and the old ones were as good as the new ones so I saved them. However in our old cars that is a total waste of money. The cost of eight Iridium plugs would buy you a lifetime supply of stock AC Delco plugs.
A few points here:
Driving a new car off the lot nowadays probably costs you more than $5k. Every car was brand new at one time. But it appears to me like you're overpaying for his knowledge. JMO. Did your mechanic tell you about having to change all the tires if you have a flat on one? Hope not, cuz he's dead-azz wrong. You can replace one tire, and one sensor if needed, and just use the reprogramming tool (and I have done this) and bingo, back in business. Plus, there's no requirement you have to put a sensor back in the tire anyway if you choose not to. It's just a valve stem apparatus anyway.
Preventive maintenance on the newer cars is not all that much more expensive than on the older cars. I know, I've done both. Corrective maintenance could be another story depending on what it is, but you can't compare money saved to a newer car you didn't even purchase. Those are phantom savings at best. Money prioritization is closer to the term you seek I believe.
G-bodies ARE old cars and take hardly any knowledge curve at all to figure out the CCC and relative parts. Other than that, they're the same as all the other OLD cars you claim to know inside and out. They're ultra-simplistic and the only thing you really have to remember is to have 2 sets of tools to work on it. SAE and Metric. Those GM dimwits did that to us.
What you don't know, you can learn. There's a plethora of information here about it. If you don't get something, ask. Not one person knows everything, but collectively every nut and bolt on a G-body has been removed and replaced within these threads at some point.
And rising in value is relative- and kind of pointless at the same time. My G-bodies are probably rising in value too. But if it's a G-body with a carbed V6, it won't rise to classic car value status, I can tell you that.
What does the price of your house have to do with anything? Depending on where you live, $500K could buy you a 2-bedroom shack (Near L.A.) or an expansive estate (Estill, SC). Heck, look how much you could've saved by doing all the work yourself. You probably could have bought a $1,000,000 house by changing plug wires yourself and bypassing the Doc Hollywood Mechanic.
Look, it's your money, your time, whatever. But your reasoning is flawed from where I sit when it comes to complaining about getting cheesed on your plug wire job. Changing wires on your V6 is just as simple as changing plug wires on a 1970 anything. And IMO, easier than an oil change. So I fail to see how farming that out was the best move financially.
Again, if it's something you haven't done, just ask. There's more help here than you can shake a stick at. And you will find the G-body platform, other than the computer controlled stuff, is just as easy to work on as the old stuff.
My dentist has a Mercedes Benz (piece of junk IMO) I wouldn't own one for free. Anyway he hit a pothole. The mechanic informed him that EVERY rim and tire needed replacing because rim is damaged and of the sensors in these cars and "low profile" tires that are the culprit. Another joke are low profile tires. If they were any good, they would have made them in 1930. So maybe it was the rims he had to replace because he damaged only one of them.
My point about my house is that I was able to buy a house because I saved so much $$$ on driving old cars. That is my point. I have friends that bought new cars just to be showoffs since they were 21 and now they live in group homes because they lost all their money and are destitute.
It's not how much you earn, its how much you save that counts. I have more wealth that I earned than most Millionaires and Billionaires. Because I know how to live frugal. Oh AND I get offers to buy my car almost every month. You know how many phone numbers I have to call when I am ready to sell this Regal... Everybody and their brother wants my car.
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Do you guys share the same mechanic? Mercedes uses the same type of valve stem pressure monitoring sensors as nearly everyone else. Look it up. Mercedes Benz parts. They even have a Mercedes p/n for it. I'm afraid your dentist got major fleeced. And you believe that bunk his mechanic claims?
I could save money by using both sides of the toilet paper to wipe my azz too, but I choose to just go ahead and use a new section. I use Charmin, btw. I'm not scrimping on comfort. Again, it's simply capital prioritization.
No one ever said you didn't get offers on your car. We all have had that very issue to deal with. Most of the time it's wannabes just flappin' their gums at a gas station. I pay no attention to them. But I do know those offers won't be in the typical classic car range in price offers. And that, I'm afraid, is fact. But if it is, take it, because that one guy will be your Waldo. At the rate your going with Doc Hollywood Mechanic, it's going to take a good chunk of change of an offer to make money back from what your getting charged for mundane maintenance.
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