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Long Term Spark Plug Thoughts

Acadia18

Autocross Champion
Location
The Greater Boston Metropolitan Area
Car(s)
2019 Golf R
My local Napa usually has them in stock in store, cost about $40 for the set of 4. No waiting for them to ship.
 

tigeo

Autocross Champion
I think mine were $36 delivered from Rock auto.
 

UA TDI

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Central PA
Car(s)
MK7 GTI
How often are you guys changing your Ruths? I threw in a set probably 10,000 miles ago and they seem to be doing well. Sorry if I missed this earlier in the thread
 

jimlloyd40

Autocross Champion
Location
Phoenix
Car(s)
2018 SE DSG
How often are you guys changing your Ruths? I threw in a set probably 10,000 miles ago and they seem to be doing well. Sorry if I missed this earlier in the thread
I change them every 15,000 miles.
 

CaptainRatty

Autocross Champion
Location
Winston-Salem, NC
Car(s)
MK7 GTI
Don't have FB. Are they blowing up because of the RS7 plugs or do they just happen to have them and they blew up their engine? How do we know it's the plugs?
Electrodes are breaking off and being sent through the motor, sometimes after the driver states they’ve only been in for 6-8k miles and then boom with no warning. I totally get how statistically it’s more likely to happen when you have a larger sample size and I’m not trying to be an alarmist, but I can’t recall seeing a single case of this issue with the Brisk or Beru RS7 plug in the last 6-8 months or so and I know those are popular options as well.

We also can’t be sure how many miles these plugs are being run for, how/if they are re-gapped, etc. It’s kind of a mess of anecdotal info; difficult to draw a solid conclusion from. And of course, I’m on my 4th set of NGK RS7 plugs with no issues.
 

aaronc7

Autocross Champion
Location
USA
Car(s)
17 S3
yeah it's hard to say if they are failing because of shitty running / hard running conditions and they get broken off, or other way around. I've seen guys kill spark plugs/burn off the ground strap after a pull or two when running too lean.

Personally I've had good luck with RS7 and basically all I've ran since I had the car. I do worry about stock heat range plugs when you start running 200+ hp over stock etc. RS7 is my compromise for now. Safest bet would be the 2 steps colder plugs, but alas they are super expensive.
 

tigeo

Autocross Champion
There is just no way to know b/c the variables in these things aren't controlled at all. How are they gapping them (the obsession with gapping...it has to play in that some don't do it correctly)? What tunes are these happening with? How long are the plugs left in? Is it possible these are counterfeit? I've used the NGK "RS7" at their stock 0.026" gap in my IS38 Sportwagen beating the crap out of it for over a year with no drama, changed at 15K miles. Currently on Ruths...
 
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Mr. Conundrum

Go Kart Champion
Location
North Carolina
Car(s)
2017 GTI Autobahn
Electrodes are breaking off and being sent through the motor, sometimes after the driver states they’ve only been in for 6-8k miles and then boom with no warning. I totally get how statistically it’s more likely to happen when you have a larger sample size and I’m not trying to be an alarmist, but I can’t recall seeing a single case of this issue with the Brisk or Beru RS7 plug in the last 6-8 months or so and I know those are popular options as well.

We also can’t be sure how many miles these plugs are being run for, how/if they are re-gapped, etc. It’s kind of a mess of anecdotal info; difficult to draw a solid conclusion from. And of course, I’m on my 4th set of NGK RS7 plugs with no issues.
Oof. That's very unlucky, for lack of a better word. Like you said, though, it's hard to say how accurately this represents things. It could also be a bad batch of plugs that were manufactured. In general, far more have had good success with the RS7 NGK plugs than have had problems.

I'm getting tuned next month and I'm trying to figure out which plugs to buy. I definitely can gap whatever I get to .024, though.
 

Escape Hatch

Autocross Champion
Location
USA
Car(s)
Mk7 GTI
I have a set of new RS7 plugs if anyone is looking to buy.
 

scrllock

Autocross Champion
Location
MI
We also can’t be sure how many miles these plugs are being run for, how/if they are re-gapped, etc. It’s kind of a mess of anecdotal info; difficult to draw a solid conclusion from. And of course, I’m on my 4th set of NGK RS7 plugs with no issues.
I'm sure there are thousands of people running them without problem, but a handful of people post about it here or on FB and that becomes gospel as a widespread issue. My guess is that people are compressing and pulling on the ground strap either with the wrong tools and/or taking so many tries to get it right that it's stressed the material at the bend. I'm sure there's a lot more people who've never gapped a plug running a stage 1 tune with NGKs than say a big turbo with 2-step colder brisks they're checking every oil change.
 
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