Yay another spark plug question! I am replacing mine today, but i dont have a torque wrench that reads below 25 foot pounds.. i just cant justify going out and buying one to torque my plugs when ive never torqued plugs before. Question is, how necessary do you guys find it to tq them down to 13 ft pds, or would i be good just getting them snug like you would any other plug job?

 

Last night I replaced the plugs on my 06 RL. It took a few hours since the back ones are a pain to get to. Need a universal joint to get the spark plug socket into the hole. I used the NGK Iridium plugs and they recommend not using antiseize. If I had to do it over again I would use a little though. They were tough to get turning. Those plugs have a washer which has to be crushed before the final torque is applied. I found information that the plugs have to be turned just a little past 1/2 turn (beyond hand tight). If you use antiseize and hand tighten, then just turn a bit past 1/2 turn and you will feel the resistance increase dramatically. In my experience if you just get it past that point (where the resistance has spiked) you will be at the correct torque.

 

i just went out a bought a torque wrench. Harbor freight had one on sale for 10 bucks for one of there stores opening sales lol. So i went a head and took all the covers off along with the strut bar. Took all the coil packs off and removed the plugs, which by the look of them appeared to of never been changed (and im at 167,000 miles lol) so i dabbed a small amount of anti seize on each plug and hand tightened them. Then i took my tq wrench and set it to 13 ft pounds and went around and tq'ed them down. Then i upped it to about 15 pounds and went around and did it again (just for some piece of mind lol) And its been great ever since then, and that was the 2nd of April. I've done plugs on 100's of cars but this one has me the most freaked out b/c of the horror stories lol.

 

FYI, I used SM spec (13 ft-lbs) with A-S and the plugs are fine after 30K miles. I wouldn't stress over it.