Just curious....has anyone been running the original spark plugs for a looong time? I have 212,000 km (130,000 miles) on my RDX and have not changed the plugs and curious to see how far I can go without having to do that.

 

You are supposed to change your spark plugs when the Maintenance Minder "4" appears. It's a maintenance item and should be done when necessary - not sure why you are looking to extend? Or are you simply curious as to when it is going to come due? Keep in mind when the "4" appears you are supposed to replace the Timing Belt and Water Pump, etc, so this will likely be a somewhat costly maintenance.

 

I change mine at the timing belt replacement interval. So I've done it twice since my car has 220K miles.

Theoretically, you could wait until you get an engine misfire Code or the car gets hard to start. If this is past 150 to 200K miles, you may have trouble getting the old plugs out. That would be my biggest concern.

 

I'm changing plugs every 50k miles. I know they say 100k miles is okay, but I change them anyway. The NKG iridium plug is what I use the top of the line for the engine, the laser iridium. Going longer is your cup of tea, then go for it. I agree with
one of the statements above, that it might make it harder to remove them with extra miles on there. I just turned 100k miles and that is my second set along with the timing belt service being performed. I installed the plugs and had my indy do the belt work.

 

The Acura RDX doesn't have a traditional maintenance schedule based on miles . It uses the maintenance minder. It's an adjustment if you're used to traditional maintenance based on miles.

Like NBP04TL4ME mentioned, the sparks are changed at the same time as the timing belt which is around 105k miles. https://www.auto123.com/en/auto-parts/maintenance-schedule/?lcarids=1170102501%7Ctous+les+services&presetmake id=&year=2017&make=Acura&makeid=1%7CAcura&model=RD X

Not the same vehicle but when I changed the spark plugs in my 2006 Camry at 120k miles, the plugs were in great shape and could have easily gone another 30k miles. My guess is you're fine if you haven't experienced any "drivability" issues. I would look to change them in the next 5k miles or so.

Good luck.

 

Hello,
I bought my 2008 RDX w/ 164,000miles and have changed every fluid and filter, struts,brakes, tires, but not spark plugs or coils. I now have 195,000 miles on them and still runs great, my mechanic says not to worry until you notice a severe change in performance or big drop in MPG. As always, everyone treats their vehicles different so it's totally up to you?

 

My concern with anything being in place so long is...can they be removed if needed.

I am about to remove mine after 5 years, clean the threads and apply anti-seize to them even though I only have 34K kms on them.

 

Whoa....that's kinda crazy.......Mine came out very very easily, there was lube on the threads from the factory and they were the original ones...I pulled them at 200,000 km.

 

Good to know. I'll have my original plugs out before the end of the month. The factory using lube on the spark plug threads? That'll be a first in my 50+ years of wrenching.

 

Well to be honest, I can't say for sure if there was lube on them...and yes it seems unlikely to me as well. It did kinda look like there may have been a thin coat of oil applied to the threads ....anyway, happy wrenching (or should I say socketing)

 

All six spark plugs were identical upon removal. A very slight bit of resistance during the first half or full turn, probably due to carbon on the first thread and then they could be removed by simply spinning the extension with my fingers.

All six spark plug threads were identical in that all were brown up ths full length of the 1" spark plug reach.

Spark Plugs