Bumbobee

Hey guys,

Got 310,000 km on my 2001 Lexus ES300 now, and I want to change the spark plugs and spark plug wires. Spark plugs have been changed in the past, the wires are all still original.

I'm a little bit confused, on rockauto it says the spark plug wires don't come with direct coil ignition boots? Do I need to buy the boots as well?

808mcv20l

2001 like my 2000 has no spark plug wires to change. There is an ignition coil on each spark plug.

My 99 Camry V6 like the 97-98 ES300 had 3 coils for the front 3 cylinders and spark plug wires that go to the rear 3, I changed those out when servicing the spark plugs.

For your 2001 you will need to buy all 6 new Ignition coils if you want to refresh the ignition system.

The Coils will come with the boots, which is usually just a spring with a rubber insulator.

Bumbobee

Thanks for the info, and wow replacing all 6 coils is expensive. Should I just skip that and replace the spark plugs?

mmatheny

Depends - have you had the car the whole time? Have the rear plugs EVER been changed (310,000 miles on original plugs is wow!)


I would do what I did, and buy 3 and replace them with the 3 rear plugs, and put new plugs in the front. Keep the others for a spare in case one on front starts acting up. Then later when you recover from the cost of 3, buy 3 more and replace the front. Get OEM.

808mcv20l

I would go with Denso or NGK iridium plugs, the Denso being what Lexus installs from the factory.

You can get away without changing the coils, but 300k is a long time to run the original coils. OEM coils are around 100 a piece, aftermarket ones usually run $40-50.

The coils in my dad's 2001 Honda odyssey has 1 coil per cylinder like ES, they ran for around 250k before he started getting misfires we replaced them with Dephi coils for a fraction of the OEM price.

Just leave the coils for now, but if you start getting misfires, it might be time to replace them. If you can't afford OEM just go with a known brand and not generic.

808mcv20l

just saw this, when it's time to replace coils get these:

That's a Denso Coil for 60 bucks is a pretty good deal.

Bumbobee

The spark plugs are not original, I replaced them at around 180,000 km. They are ngk iridium I believe.

My car has 310,000 km not miles. 192,000 miles approx.

Why only replace 3? I replaced all 6 last time.

808mcv20l

oh ok km, that makes more sense, btw I think he was telling you to buy 3 new coils and put them in the rear since they are hard to access.

When you start having problems with the coils in the front, replace the problem one with one of the spares you took out from the rear, keep doing that till you save enough money to replace the 3 front coils.

mmatheny

Exactly 808!

Bumbobee

Ahh ok I understand.

How about the actual wires going to the ignition coils? They don't need to be replaced?

I'm looking at rock auto and it seems they have better prices then amazon.

808mcv20l

Those wires are part of the engine harness, how would you replace it, and why would those go bad?

The only problem I've had are with the connectors, on my 99 the connectors that hold the electrical pins would become brittle with the engine heat and crack when unplugging them.

Those connectors are different though than what's on the 2000-2001 but if they crack you will probably likely need to replace them.

You can get the connector plugs from the dealer if yours are brittle and cracked.

All you do is remove the pins from the old connector and move them into the new one, of course in the same order.

If you've de-pinned a connector before the process will be the same, usually there's a lock clip that you remove, each pin itself has a little tab that locks it in place you just need to get a tiny flat screw driver and lift the tab up and pull the pin out. If the connector is brittle enough, a lot of the times you can just snap off the plastic and free the pins.

But I'm thinking your connectors will likely be ok and you won't need to do the above.

the 97-99 camry ones were notorious for breaking.

Oro

I would like to point out that not all iridiums plugs are the same. The "Twin Tip" and other narrow-electrode types are oriented to tweakers, etc. Given the PITA to get to the rear plugs, and the non-perfromance nature of this engine, get the "Long Life" iridium ones. You can pretty safely leave them in 100k IME and thus time your changes with major work like a t-belt or VC gaskets. The long life ones generally have a center electrode of .7 or .8mm, so avoid the ones that say "small center electrode" (.4mm, .5mm). They have a much shorter service life.

As to coils, I did not have one go bad until 250k miles. This was a distinct pleasure vs. the 2uz-fe V8 in the past that started eating them routinely after 140k mi. I would not splurge on new ones until up to good mileage. I do like the idea of replacing the rear three then holding the rear ones in reserve, that maybe wise. 310km is a point you might consider that.

808mcv20l

Actually I think it's yet to be seen how long the Iridium Twin Tips will last. Per Denso's website the TT has a service life of 100k.

Other thing that makes me think they might actually last longer than 100k is the fact that the upper Electrode is made of 0.7mm Platinum and the lower is the same .4mm Iridium electrode.

The standard Iridium plugs do not have the upper platinum electrode, not sure what type of metal they use but it certainly does not last as long as the lower iridum electrode.

I've removed 100K mile NGK Iridium spark plugs from my dad's van, this was the 2nd set, the car is now on its' 3rd set. Those spark plugs were still running fine but we replaced them for preventative maintenance.

To Note, the only noticeable wear I've seen on those plugs were to the upper electrode which had been "eaten" away through use, the iridium looked pretty good shape. So my question is, does it improve longevity if you use platinum for the upper electrode?

The strange thing is, I am a firm believer of getting what you pay for, which holds true most of the time... The Twin Tips cost less than the Long Life iridiums and the Twin Tips are made in USA vs Japan.

I have a set and I do plan to run them at some point, I don't really do the amount of driving that all of you do so I'm not too concerned if they don't last 100k+ miles.

For the rest of you folks though I'd go with what's been proven, get the long life iridiums.

funcrusher

I just called Lexus to get the model number for my spark plugs then ordered from RockAuto. No big deal.

As for the other spark plug parts. I wouldnt just start replacing ****** unless it needs to be. Wait for the check engine light to give you those codes.

speedkar9

Hello fellow Torontonian,

As others have mentioned you don't need to replace the coils or the wires on your ES300 as part of preventative maintenance. Just replacing the spark plugs should be fine.

Since these have the metal intake plenum, spark plug/ coil pack replacement isn't as involved as the newer V6's where the entire intake has to come off.

Make sure you hit up local auto-parts vendors for pricing on the plugs, I found they're cheaper and faster to obtain locally than to ship from RockAuto, especially given the Canadian dollar now.

Lastly, here's a video on how I replaced the sparks on my Solara. Procedure is the same as the ES300, although you don't have the wiring going to the rear plugs but have ignition coils on the rear three instead.