Hello everyone, I just got my sparkplug changed this morning. I did the front ones myself and then took the car to my mechanic then. I was under the impression from what I heard that you have to either take off the intake manifold or the wiper motor. But my mechanic did no such thing. Lexus dealer was charging me 600. I got it done in 75.

 

It's been awhile since I changed mine last, but if memory serves, to get to the rear bank of plugs I took off the upper manifold. There may be other ways, but this worked for me. Not overly difficult.

 

Now that I think of it. My mechanic is skinny lol and his must've went in easily. He went right in for it and took out the coil with no ease and I was in shock. Didn't take anything off. Took the plug out with no issues and replaced easily. Despite what online and other mechanics were telling me, he got it done without taking anything off.

 

You can do it that way but it can be pretty difficult and time consuming. Kudos to your mechanic on that one. For someone less able (like myself) you can run into trouble and possibly damage some of the wiring back there or drop something in the engine. I’m lucky it didn’t happen to me.

You may need to visit him again if you have problems with the old coils. Often times the plastic connectors are brittle and will break when separating them. All 3 of mine did.

 

That's what one he told me. He said I'm lucky my coil wire didn't break because they usually do. But out of curiosity why would I have to see him again if they were broke off. Do they get loose and fall off eventually?

 

Just in case you need to replace one of the rear coils. Because you have a guy that can just reach back there, he would be able to replace one at a much lower cost than say what a dealership would charge to pull everything apart. Sometimes the coils go bad but I had all of my originals until I sold mine with about 240k miles on it.

 

Also some guys put a zip tie to hold the connectors after they break. I just put mine back together and they held together no problem for over 100k miles.

 

Yup my front three snapped and I zip tied them.
In actuality I changed my front three coils. But my mechanic recommended that I keep the original coils on the back. If my new ones in the front go bad I can easily change them. But he said to come to him if I think the back ones are bad in case of a misfire or something.

 

I replaced the spark plugs on my wife's previous car, an Avalon, without removing the intake. It wasn't easy, but it was doable. She's only at 76K on her 2011 ES, and I understand the plugs can go to 120K, so I'm in no hurry. The back three plugs are a challenge, but, I plan to tackle this myself again when the time comes. There's how-to's on YouTube for replacing the back three plugs without removing the intake. As with most difficult mechanical work, it comes down to patience, dexterity, and tools. Knowing how to use your tools is key too, but you only learn by practice!