1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by Bepis »

RUM4MO wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 8:39 pm How is the coil pack extension fixed to the coil pack, I'm asking as I have bought a spare coil just to have in the car, and have been tempted to separate the two parts to see how/why they can end up coming apart, the rubber extension is available as a spare part I've noticed?
I can't 100% recall as I put it back onto the stuck boot panicking thinking I'd just broken my perfectly good ignition coil.

But from what I can remember there was an electrode that came from the coil itself and contacted a spring in the boot. The boot itself had a circular rubber top that the spring protruded out from with a lip that the coil just pushed into. There didn't seem to be much keeping them together.

Which I guess explains why they're bolted to the cylinder head to keep them in place and intact. To be fair to it though it did take some force to separate :lol:

To stop this from happening again I now pull the coil up slightly with the tool then grip the boot between the index and middle finger on my left hand and pull it all out together in one big sort of fist of ignition coil and tool.

Although with the coils on the 1.2 ea211 being rotated and set back a little it could be a bit awkward to get 2 hands in but that's just from looking as I've only changed the plugs on my 1.8 ea888.
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by 2226 »

ciclo wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 7:02 pm I recommend Iridium's.
NGK 97153 💎 (03F905600A)

Tool: BGS 2460 💎 (1.2 TSI CBZ A/B/C)

viewtopic.php?p=589410#p589410

---
'Do not buy the tool on Ali, it does not have the appropriate measurements'. :lol:
I have the 16V CJZD. Not sure the plugs are the same.
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by 2226 »

RUM4MO wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 8:39 pm How is the coil pack extension fixed to the coil pack, I'm asking as I have bought a spare coil just to have in the car, and have been tempted to separate the two parts to see how/why they can end up coming apart, the rubber extension is available as a spare part I've noticed?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtLQApy ... &index=105

You can see how they're attached in this video. They remove the coil from the boot, leaving the boot in the valve cover. Then pop out the contact spring and send in some air to expand the boot around the plug.
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by ciclo »

2226 wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 6:19 am
ciclo wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 7:02 pm I recommend Iridium's.
NGK 97153 💎 (03F905600A)

Tool: BGS 2460 💎 (1.2 TSI CBZ A/B/C)

viewtopic.php?p=589410#p589410

---
'Do not buy the tool on Ali, it does not have the appropriate measurements'. :lol:
I have the 16V CJZD. Not sure the plugs are the same.
Image
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by RUM4MO »

2226 wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 6:23 am
RUM4MO wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 8:39 pm How is the coil pack extension fixed to the coil pack, I'm asking as I have bought a spare coil just to have in the car, and have been tempted to separate the two parts to see how/why they can end up coming apart, the rubber extension is available as a spare part I've noticed?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtLQApy ... &index=105

You can see how they're attached in this video. They remove the coil from the boot, leaving the boot in the valve cover. Then pop out the contact spring and send in some air to expand the boot around the plug.
Thank you for that, that was very useful, now I'll need to take the spare coil apart - just because I know how to! This makes a lot of sense of what I had read, ie "just use compressed air"!

Edit:- I seem to remember that I took as much of the assembly grease off the old plugs and applied it to the new plugs, though I think silicon grease would also be okay to use, to maybe slightly lubricate the plug<>boot contact surfaces and improve moisture sealing. Certainly I'd expect that if you did that, the coils would pull up as a complete unit the next time you changed the plugs.
Last edited by RUM4MO on Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by Mikeso51 »

Regarding purchasing the the coil pack removal tool from China, here's a picture of the one I bought. Cost about a tenner all in. Works just fine. My only criticism is that the thread in the large knurled nut is a bit sloppy, but then I am rather fussy!
image0.jpeg
image0.jpeg (3.31 MiB) Viewed 916 times
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by RUM4MO »

So even that copy one has been evolved to include ribs/ridges on the "expander" end.

I just hope my older version, which again is a copy of the real thing, will still grip the coil pack well enough - time will tell!

Mind you that BGS 9094 does look impressive, but I'd need to buy a display box for it and mount it on the garage wall - or even in the house, well maybe not!

Edit:- maybe apply some grease onto the area that the nut ends up running over because if that nut is just alloy, is its thread is slightly floppy/rough, then it will get worn down by the steel thread on the tapered wedge pin.

Second Edit:- corrected the BGS tool number to 9094.
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by 2226 »

I finally got round to buying new NGK plugs and fitted them today.

Bought a few tools to get it done. Found a 250mm-long 16mm spark plug socket from company called Force Tools down here which saved me tons trying to ship the Laser Tools equivalent from the UK.
Bought some (relatively) inexpensive hose clamp tools. One for remote clamp and the other just a pliers of sorts. How have I survived without these?!?!?

Anyway, pulled the old plugs and they look like this:

Image

Plenty of ash deposits on those. From the oil burning I assume.
Will monitor the new plug condition maybe 5000km from now.

Going to try and get someone to bring me some BG EPR and MOA from the USA.. somehow.

Then I backtracked through my service book to the last time this was in for a service at the dealership.
It says plugs renewed at 43,866km. I'm on 76K at the moment. No idea if they were actually changed. I think these are only meant to be changed around 75K km or something like that.

But what was more interesting is that during that last service they didn't bother to indicate whether they changed the oil or not.
It was around that mileage that I near ran out of oil. And just a couple of months before my warranty ran out. Very suspect, isn't it?
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by RUM4MO »

One thing that I did this time round, was to apply a ring of silicone grease to the lower end of the connector piece, doing this is recommended to stop the connector piece “gripping” the spark plug insulator - which is what leads to the connector piece separating from the HT part of the coils.

The correct VW Group silicone paste costs quite a bit, but there are lots of people selling small tubes of “ignition tune up grease” or dielectric grease, so I bought a small tube and used it on the Polo 1.2TSI 110PS.

On the subject of platinum or iridium, I see that the later 2.0TSI 290PS VW Group engines have moved from platinum to iridium, but Ido not know if the “plug change” period was lengthened along with that change.

My younger daughter’s 2019 SEAT Arona 1.0TSI 115PS engine had iridium spark plugs so I replaced them at 4.5 years for the same. I’ve only ever, so far in 23 years of BW Group cars, found factory original spark plugs to be NGK and always replaced with the same either VW Group branded or just aftermarket NGK.

My wife’s 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI came new with “A” versions but at first change moved onto “B” version both versions being NGK and Platinum.

Edited to add in "time".
Last edited by RUM4MO on Mon Oct 02, 2023 9:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by 2226 »

I lightly coated the plug with non-conductive silicone paste. Kept it away from the conductor tip.
The plugs that came and also the coil boot had no grease whatsoever. The boot did seem to have some powder on the tip which is usually a dry silicone lubricant.

This had B-versions. Not sure if the dealership did the change because maybe it had the A variant in it. But I'm not even sure this dealership did anything but tick things in a book and send the bill to VW.

The ash build-up bugs me so bad; but as mentioned I will check in on the plugs regularly (probably sooner than 5K km) to see if it is still building up.

The car doesn't consume oil very quickly after a engine flush and oil change, but it will soon start to consume again. Could start up again in less than 1000km. When it gets close to the change interval (maybe 9000-10000km) it starts to rapidly consume oil. I am going to try and get BG EPR and BOA, but those might be tough to ship.
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by Le_Combattant »

What kind of oil did you use ?

And why kind of travel are you doing ?
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by 2226 »

Up to last dealership service it was running on whatever they had in the Castrol drums.

I currently run Ravenol VST 5W40. Trying to reduce service intervals to about 7500km or no more than 6 months.

Unfortunately mostly relatively short trips (20+ minutes), but always long enough to get fully heated up.
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by Le_Combattant »

2226 wrote: Mon Oct 02, 2023 7:44 pm Up to last dealership service it was running on whatever they had in the Castrol drums.

I currently run Ravenol VST 5W40. Trying to reduce service intervals to about 7500km or no more than 6 months.

Unfortunately mostly relatively short trips (20+ minutes), but always long enough to get fully heated up.
Castrol is s**t. From what I heard, Ravenol is a decent brand.
The official manufacturer of VW Oil is shell and now the 504/507 is 0W30.

I was runing on 5W30 before, and my oil consumption was about 500ml every 10000km.
Now ? Almost 2 times less, and I'm in 0W30.
My engine is a CJZC and I have 140000 km.

I do 120 km per day (speedway).
I'm not a great fan of flushing product. Oils have already all additives inside to keep your engine clean.

Maybye you should try to run longer, faster and on different type of load: high rpm, low rpm with full throttle. In this case it can put back in correct place the ring around your piston because of being clogged or something else.
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by RUM4MO »

Without having any proper evidence to back me up, I also consider that Castrol products tend to be priced to support the Castrol name/brand, so quite a bit of your money goes just into you using that brand. I know that they do take on a lot of lab testing which will be funded by engine manufacturers - but that does not always guarantee that the product being sold to the end users is top class, I'm sure it is not pure rubbish, but just not a good reflection on the price that you end up paying, also, at least in UK, they do or used to protect their image through monitoring what outlets are charging for their products - which usually means if you trim a bit off the price, and so drop below their "intended" selling price, then they will make trading life slightly difficult, ie they protect their image and so unit selling price over everything else. Some outlets used to get round this by including "gifts" but even that seems to have stopped.

I'm currently putting together a kit of parts so that I can service my older daughter's 2019 SEAT Leon Cupra 290, and as I have been using Mobil One 5W-30 ESP on our own 2 cars for quite a few years, I was going to use Mobil One 5W-30 in this Leon Cupra 290 service, and conveniently, some outlets are currently selling Mobil One 5W-30 ESP at a discounted price, now I think that I know why this might be, and also the reason why some of the big sellers have no stocks of that oil, and that is that Mobil have revised this oil and now include the statement that it meets with API SP, which is the API rating that includes improved control of LSPI, now I don't necessarily see that as being an issue for the bigger EA888 DI Petrol engines, but it has said to be an issue with the smaller EA211 D1 Petrol engines, which these 1.2TSI engines are, so if I'm correct, then when this new formulation of Mobil One 5W-30 ESP appears, it will be better suited for use in these small engines.

Edit:- by the way, again with having no hard facts to back me up other than experience from using them, over using only them over a period of 23 years, I prefer to have Eldor coils in my VW Group engines.
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Re: 1.2TSI Spark Plugs: Iridium or Platinum?

Post by 2226 »

Le_Combattant wrote: Mon Oct 02, 2023 8:20 pm Castrol is s**t. From what I heard, Ravenol is a decent brand.
The official manufacturer of VW Oil is shell and now the 504/507 is 0W30.
Well they have/had some deal with Castrol. Even the oil filler cap on my CJZD is branded Castrol.
Many down here had increase oil consumption on these oils and reduced it by switching to other brands.
Le_Combattant wrote: Mon Oct 02, 2023 8:20 pm I was runing on 5W30 before, and my oil consumption was about 500ml every 10000km.
Now ? Almost 2 times less, and I'm in 0W30.
My engine is a CJZC and I have 140000 km.

I do 120 km per day (speedway).
I'm not a great fan of flushing product. Oils have already all additives inside to keep your engine clean.

Maybye you should try to run longer, faster and on different type of load: high rpm, low rpm with full throttle. In this case it can put back in correct place the ring around your piston because of being clogged or something else.
Yes, they have additives. Clearly not working.

When your rings are clogged you will need a flush chemical. I have used Ravenol professional engine flush on the last 2 oil changes and consumption stops immediately after that, but does eventually return. For a while after these you could feel the engine improving over a few days. As soon as the oil starts discolouring then things start up again.

It has been recommended to me to use a ester-based oil from Motul and I think I will eventually go that route, but @ GBP130 for 5 litres it isn't exactly affordable right now. Ravenol sets me back 40GBP for 5 litres which is expensive enough at the moment. Ester oils have a high detergent effect and will clean out those rings apparently. It's just that they're a expensive oil to get hold of.

The VST is 5W-40. I run it as we're in a hotter climate. I'd go with a 0W-30 if they had it in VST.

I'm also sticking to 502 oils, not the 504/507 low SAPS oils. Apparently those don't do so well with high sulphur content fuels and I'm battling enough issues to want to have to deal with anymore from doing that.

I've looked at a ton of things regarding sticky oil rings and seen a number of people go from tons to zero oil consumption using things like Berryman's B-12 or BG EPR to free up the rings. Neither of those I can get here, but I am going to try.

And yes, that driving style is how I do it anyway. Plenty of swapping rpm, etc. "Italian tune-up" as they say.
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