[drash]

Some Lexus owners are swapping out their factory iridium tipped spark plugs for Denso Iridium Power plugs (http://www.denso.co.jp/PLUG/iridium-e/). Has anybody done this?

I'm just curious. I definitely do NOT plan on doing this but was wondering if anybody did and thought they were better like the Lexus owners rave about. A major con is their 4mm tip wears out after 30K miles while the normal ones last 100K miles. But a major pro according to the Denso site the smaller tip lowers the voltage needed to start a spark.

 

[RSnyder]

I'm having a hard time understanding this post. I thought Denso made the plugs for Lexus. So if they're swapping iridium plugs for iridium plugs by the same manufacturer, what is supposed to be accomplished?

 

[hyperion]

maybe they hit the 100,000 mile mark mentioned in the manual! Some folks must not have heard the phrase "if it works, leave it alone!"

 

[DanMan32]

Looking at the last graph, you'd gain a few tenths of a mile per gallon based on THEIR study. Doubt it would justify the extra cost of the plug, especially if it wears out prematurely.

Their graph on fuel consumption during idle shows more promise for a conventional car, as you could gain about 5% increase, but our cars don't idle much.

 

[drash]

I'm having a hard time understanding this post. I thought Denso made the plugs for Lexus. So if they're swapping iridium plugs for iridium plugs by the same manufacturer, what is supposed to be accomplished?

Well from what some Lexus owners were saying, the factory OEM plugs are made by Denso but they are 7mm tips. These are "Performance" and it helps with their low end performance. I kind of got into the discussion because I have an '03 Avalon (as well as my Prius) and kept it outside during the winter. My Prius got the garage after spending its first 4 weeks outside. Anyways, I put in Bosch 4 prong spark plugs in my '93 T100 as well as a '95 Camry and the winter startups were phenomenally fast. I was thinking about putting them in the Avalon when I read it had Iridium tips. Like the Prius, it is not recommended to use anything other than Iridium. Hense the post.

 

[RSnyder]

I'm having a hard time understanding this post. I thought Denso made the plugs for Lexus. So if they're swapping iridium plugs for iridium plugs by the same manufacturer, what is supposed to be accomplished?

Well from what some Lexus owners were saying, the factory OEM plugs are made by Denso but they are 7mm tips. These are "Performance" and it helps with their low end performance. I kind of got into the discussion because I have an '03 Avalon (as well as my Prius) and kept it outside during the winter. My Prius got the garage after spending its first 4 weeks outside. Anyways, I put in Bosch 4 prong spark plugs in my '93 T100 as well as a '95 Camry and the winter startups were phenomenally fast. I was thinking about putting them in the Avalon when I read it had Iridium tips. Like the Prius, it is not recommended to use anything other than Iridium. Hense the post.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. The referenced Denso website is a bit confusing. My interpretation was that they went with Iridium in order to be able to reduce the tip size to 4 mm. I didn't think they would have used more expensive Iridium to make the thicker 7 mm size that could be made more cheaply (with Platinum?). So does anyone know which size the Prius uses? (Looks like my 2001 uses part # SK16R11 which is not listed on that site.)