Spark plugs on '11 Charger RT

[jwbouch]

The owners manual says to change spark plugs every 30k miles. I just changed them today, and fortunately it is pretty easy to get at all 16 plugs!

My question is, I've never heard of a modern car needing plugs before 100k miles. Does anyone know why they need changed so often on the 5.7 Hemi? Can I buy a more expensive plug that lasts longer?

[Blake Noble]

What sort of plug did you remove? Regular, platinum, or what?

You're getting into some tricky territory here if, say, you wanted to go from a typical Autolite standard plug to a Bosch Platinum one. Just to give you some food for thought, when I had my XJ Cherokee, the 4.0L inline-six was happier with cheap Autolite truck plugs over than anything with a platinum tip. In fact, the 4.0 would burn the diode right off of the platinum plug (and it's something that most 4.0s do). You might have to change the plugs more often, but you could be better off going with whatever came factory for your 5.7L Hemi.

Also, when I had my '08 Astra, GM recommended changing the plugs in the 1.8L Ecotec every 30,000. It's more uncommon these days to do a plug change at that interval, but it isn't really that rare.

Edited December 29, 2013 by black-knight

[jwbouch]

I just pulled the factory plugs. The car has 35k miles. I went to my local dodge dealership and just got the same factory plugs. It was $90 for all 16 plugs. I can't complain too much.

[Drew Dowdell]

yeah, just stick with the OEMs or equivalent if they aren't too hard to get to. I tried the iridium tipped ones in my Toronado and noticed no change except for a lighter wallet. I can pull and replace all 8 plugs in about 30 minutes... so this last time, I just put in standard copper tip plugs.