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First off, I just wanted to thank everyone for the knowledge of wealth in this forum. I was able to basically walk through a spark plug change & air filter change even though I am a complete garage newbie.
Question #1 - After the sparkplug change, the first startup of the car had a slight bubbling/gurgling idle. The first few stop signs the idle dropped quite low and there was a slight hesitation on acceleration. After awhile, the car seems to have balanced out and has a peppy pickup now.
Was this the ECU/Engine re-calculating the new spark/air values after changing the sparkplugs/very dirty air filters? Should I have reset the ECU/throttle after all the changes? Should I do a ECU/throttle reset now?
Question #2 - Below are my old sparkplugs. Being a newbie, I'm not sure what to look for in terms of indicators of any problems with the engine. Is the oil on the threads and corrosion of the plug tip just normal wear? The car has run perfect thus far, should I just increase the frequency of sparkplug changes? It's a 2007 with 55,000 miles and this is the first sparkplug change.
Hi All, thanks for the responses, some quick updates ...
Sparkplugs - Thank for the feedback on the plugs. I also found the page below which shows various sparkplug wear. Mine are pretty close to normal and nowhere near the problem ones, so that was a relief to see
Rough Idle - The bubbling/gurgling cold start and jumpy idle at stop continued and the car finally threw a check engine light. The codes were:
P2188 - fuel system too rich at idle bank 1
P2190 - fuel system too rich at idle bank 2
Searched this forum and found it's either a bad MAF or something in the air intake is not seated properly.
I re-seated the air filter box/engine cover and realized I put it back on wrong after the sparkplug/filter change. For those with the M272, you should focus on lining up the air intake grate in the back of the engine (the MAF) with the large O ring gasket and give it a hefty push in to lock it down. This will automatically seat the 4 clips on the top of the engine. (I made the mistake of focusing on the 4 engine clips the first time, which I'm guessing made a loose connection to the actual air intake/MAF).
Idle is back to being rock solid and the car feels great. Will update if the car has any other issues, but I think I'm in the clear and the car is back to being awesome.
I agree with you. Those plugs are very normal for a fuel injected modern car. Looks like after a little misalignment of the engine cover things are all good.
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