UNBELIEVABLY ridiculous dealer markup on plugs

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confusatron

Senior Member
Just thought I'd share this with you guys: a few months ago, I bought some NGK Iridium plugs for my crapmonster D15B7 for no other reason than I'm stupid and wanted Iridium plugs because I'm stupid. So anyway, they were on sale for I think $6.99 a piece at Pep Boys. Today I went looking for NGK OEM type PLATINUMS, not even Iridiums, for my new B16A2, and none of the parts stores had them, and they said they couldn't even order them for me. So, just out of curiosity, I went to the local Honda dealer, and asked them how much these NGK plugs were. The guy says, with a totally straight face, "$20." I said, "for the set of four? That's not bad." He said, "no, $20 a piece." I laughed my ass off. I said, "dude, I only paid $7 a plug for NGK IRIDIUMs a few months back, and you're trying to sell me platinums for $20 a pop?! Are you insane?!" He said, "well that's the price we sell them for." Unbelievable.
 
You got a good deal on the iridiums.. Lets get down to business here, I could put champion plugs in your car, then NGK iridium 9's in your car and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two. Don't even tell me you could.. DONT.

I run iridums in one car and regular NGK's in the other.. They both spark, both cars run great. Maybe the iridiums will last longer or something.. who knows. But in the mean time, I believe that iridium 9's, platinums, and regular NGK's are the same damned thing. They are built differently, with different electrodes, but they all spark.

Now, if you make the argument that Iridum or platinum lasts longer, you could replace your regular NGK's 6 times for the price of either of those plugs.

Just buy some good old regular NGK's.. They work great.
'nuff said.
 
Originally posted by phyregod@Aug 15 2005, 11:43 AM
You got a good deal on the iridiums.. Lets get down to business here, I could put champion plugs in your car, then NGK iridium 9's in your car and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two. Don't even tell me you could.. DONT.

I run iridums in one car and regular NGK's in the other.. They both spark, both cars run great. Maybe the iridiums will last longer or something.. who knows. But in the mean time, I believe that iridium 9's, platinums, and regular NGK's are the same damned thing. They are built differently, with different electrodes, but they all spark.

Now, if you make the argument that Iridum or platinum lasts longer, you could replace your regular NGK's 6 times for the price of either of those plugs.

Just buy some good old regular NGK's.. They work great.
'nuff said.
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I totally agree with what you're saying. I prefaced what I said with "I'm an idiot" twice. I knew buying them was dumb, but did it anyway. Plugs are just a psychological thing. You can't get any more spark to the cylinders than your ignition system is sending and that your ECU is telling it to send, right? Now, if you were to upgrade your entire ignition system with something like an MSD system, then you might notice a difference. But then to do that you'd have to throw down about $500 to $1000 doing all the little components of your ignition system, and maybe have to reprogram your ECU as well (I don't know). Besides, I have yet to see anyone demonstrate a before and after dyno of a full MSD ignition upgrade. I'm not saying it won't give you better acceleration and more complete combustion, I'm just saying no one has ever shown that it has, to my knowledge.
 
ECU doesn't matter (spark wise).. and yeah, to get a high performance ignition box, coil, cap, rotors, wires, plugs, you are looking at something like $600 bucks.

BUT, honda has a pretty killer ignition system. So unless you are pushing 400 HP or something I wouldn't even bother. I've seen one dyno chart where an ignition system added like 3 hp. but that was on a built motor that was pushing 350 hp, and they did it for a more reliable spark at high rpms, not so much a better spark.
 
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