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[Elemental]

I belong to a forum for in the feild mechanics.... Some time ago, someone (Not me) brought up Bosch plats....

Here's what people who fix cars for a living say about them...

96 Geo Metro 1.3 (big block!) towed in for no-start the
other morning, no previous symptoms, no history. Has spark
at coil wire. Has fuel at TBI. Hmmmmmmmmmm. Has Bosch
platinum spark plugs WR8DPX, appear recent, but not
installed by customer who has only had the car a couple of
months. Install correct plugs NGK BPR6ES-11, clean battery
terminals for goodwill and ship as a fix. Why are they
still selling these things? Bosch are you listening? Any
comment?

I always loved the single intermittant misfire that the
customer comes in saying "I can't figure it out". Then when
you try to tell them about their fairly new plug choice,
they either don't believe you, or they ask "Whatya' think
about those Split-Fires?"....hahaha, gotta love those
customers.

I've cured many hard start, no start and intermittent
misfire problems by unscrewing Bosch Platinums and
replacing them with what ever was actually designed to be
in their place. Cold weather seems to make them function
even worse. Replacing Bosch Platinums installed by the
local quick tune joints and back yard operators is actually
a profit center for my shop in winter so I'm kind of torn
about asking Bosch to do something about it (BG).

I too have noticed plenty of poor driving Volkswagens that
ran very good after removing these Platinum spark plugs.
Well, after installing the correct spark plugs that is. And
have you ever really looked at a platinum plug that had
been sparking inside an engine that burned a bit of oil?
Man, these things foul faster than meat left out on the
sidewalk.

It's my opinion that spark plugs are like shoes.

If you ask people what kind of shoe they would want to walk
20 miles in, they will each select a brand or style. Not
me, I'll take a size 13 because that's the size I wear.

It seems that when a new engine shows up, the spark plug
guys just say: "what do we already make that will screw in
that hole and kinda work"

It's more important to have the correct heat range, tip
extension, etc than to have the best insulator or the best
platinum electrodes.

If ya can get both, PERFECT!

If the OEM uses Champion.......I'll use champion. At least
I know it was designed for that specific application.

It REALLY pisses me off when I hear some parts guy asking
if a Tech/customer wants resister or not, or a particular
brand. I WANT THE ONE THAT'S DESIGNED AND MADE FOR THAT
APPLICATION!

Dido to every one. Wish I had a $1.00 for every on I have
thrown away in the past 10 years. Almost always fixes a
running proplem by trash canning them

Ever try to interpret a scope pattern with Bosch Plats? The
answer is ..you can't! The worst secondary spkes you will
ever see...and what is the official Bosch reply? I used to
work at a Bosch Service Center, and I have seen the paper
from Bosch that says "their high quality plugs can NOT be
diagnosed using a Ignition scope, as they operate
differently than other plugs", or some such garbage. In
other words THERE IS NO METHOD AVAILABLE TO THE INDUSTRY TO
DIAGNOSE A MISFIRE INDUCED BY THEIR PLUGS!!!!! Thank you
Bosch. Thank you very much.

wow,

I pulled 2 out of a Ferrari 308 that the center conductor
simply broke and fell off. Thankfully went out the exhaust
valves and found just ahead of the cats. Still good
compression and no apparent damage. Yeah, they're junk

The Bosch Platinums that we are talking about are the ones
that have the centre tip flush with the insulator.

They also have BROWN TRADEMARKING on the insulator.....at
least in Canada they do. These are the only Bosch plugs
that I have an issue with. Correct application Bosch OE
plugs (that may be Platinum) dont cause problems in my
(largely VW) experience.

The bad Bosch Platinums have made me a hero several times
over and have been THE factor in winning over new
customeers on many occasions by fixing their "nobody can
fix it" problem. I hope that they continue to be available
for years to come.

In my limited experience, I don't think that it is just a
Bosch thing. I got burned about a year ago by putting
Autolite platinum plugs in a mid 90's T-bird 4.6L. The
thing ran so crappy and I was in such a state of denial
that I looked at everything else before I went back to the
ignition system. But I finally put the Motorcraft plugs in
that the engine wanted and the thing ran like a scalded cat
after that. The ignition pattern looked a whole lot
different as well. The pattern with the platinum plugs
didn't look bad but then again, I am still trying to learn
the black art of secondary ignition analysis. Hard lesson
to learn but now I will not use anything but OEM plugs no
matter what the application. If a vehicle comes intp my bay
for a driveability problem and it has platinum plugs in it
and it wasn't born with those plugs, out they come. Don't
matter if they are new or not. It has brought the price of
plug replacement up on some applications but that isn't my
problem. And after lurking in these fourms for a while, I
am putting more and more OEM stuff on board as well.

My dad put Bosch platinums in his '85 Town Car & gapped
them to .050. Nothing but problems. In many cars they work
well & really last, but anybody who sells them should be
aware that they shouldn't be gapped. In my opinion, the
problem is that todays engines have combustion chambers
that are designed to direct lots of fuel mix past the plug
gap. With the vast differences in chamber design, we are
seeing some strange tip configurations on spark plugs.
Bosch Platinums are pretty much all the same when you look
at the tip. The positioning in the combustion chamber will
be, on lots of applications, different than OEM design. I
dislike engineers, as most techs do, but respect their
designs. About five years ago we started seeing subtle
driveability problems after spark plug changes in some
later model cars. Missfire at cruise & light acceleration
was the main problem. Generally, disconnecting the EGR on
road test made this go away, so I felt it was probably a
result of changing the plugs to a replacement that didn't
quite do the trick under adverse conditions. (Lean mix &
EGR) We started using Motorcraft plugs on Fords, A/Cs on GM
& Champion on Chrysler & Asian applications. Bingo, almost
all problems went away. The one brand we used before this
was not Bosch, BTW, but if the brand we were using caused
problems, even though it looked like OEM, I wouldn't use
anything that didn't look anything like OEM. I leave it to
the engineers.