E36 spark plugs NGK and Bosch discussion

i got 60K miles on my NGK 4 prong spark plugs

just a darkening no them. not that black.
no pitting.

should i replace them ?

one thing i gotta say i went to the stealer
and saw the Bosch replacement plugs for the car.
wanted 31 bucks.
they are Bosch and i dont like that the center electrode is the size of
a pinhead.
seems anything gets on that and u have a problem.

but those are what BMW puts in there.
im glad i get the NGK years ago but i must
say i never remembeer the originals on my 328i looking like these Bosch

The plug with small center electrode is platinum.

Some people have stromg opinions about the brand, and regular vs platinum.

My only advice is use an OEM plug that's recommended by BMW. I've used NGK and Bosch. I've used regular and platinum. But they were all OEM parts and they all ran well on my 325.

You'll have to decide if the platinum's longer life is useful, or worth the extra cost.

As spark plugs wear the gap gets wider and the edges on the electrodes become more rounded. The wear slowly makes it more difficult for the spark to jump the gap. Pitting is not normal wear. At 60000 miles your "non-platinum" plugs are near the end of their life.

The ideal colour for the insulator is "tan". It varies quite a bit with the type of driving you do before pulling the plugs. The colour tells you more about the engine than the plugs themselves.

my old plugs were NGK platinum

The dealers do sell a "long life plug" that is like $29. The plugs in these cars can go 100,000 miles, although I usually replaced mine at about 80K

STICK WITH STOCK - you cannot get "10% increase in horsepower!!!" (with lots of exclamation points!!!!) by going to a fancy plug.

Spark is spark.

Going to a weird "performance plug" often causes problems - search all these boards. I found that some Bosch Platinum tips were too cold and cause misfiring.

Yes, you will get 10% more horsepower over a misfiring plug. But other than that....

Just go to the autoparts store or online, and order the same plugs that came out of it - the stock plugs. You can probably get the best price online. The local autoparts store will try to sell you an "equivalent" which will have the same form factor, but may be a different heat range.

But you should be able to get another 20-40 K out of the existing ones.

High Energy Ignition and modern Fuel Injection mean that plugs rarely foul anymore. In most cases, just leave 'em alone. They're fine.

Now, back in the day, in my '66 chevy, you had to pull those babies every 15,000 miles and clean them, and replace them every 30K or so. The good old days sucked, no matter what people try to tell you.