jkv11503

I need a little help.

I'm replacing valve cover gaskets and resealing the breather covers, replacing spark plugs, spark plug wires, and breather hoses on a '02 S430 with 85K miles. So far, so good with one little exception.

The new plug wires that I purchased are STI #661 (brand is Karlyn). They are slightly different than the OEM. See the attached photo.

I'm concerned because the aluminum housing of the STI wire is not as long as the OEM wire's housing. For those of you who have removed your OEM wires from the plugs, you know how tough it can be to pry them off with an open-ended wrench.

How will I be able to remove the redesigned STI wire from the plug if the housing is so far down below the valve cover that I can't grab hold of it with the wrench? Is there some other tool that will work better?

This is my weekend project. If I can't get confirmation that the STI wires will work then I'm just going to return them for a refund and use the old OEM wires. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

jkv11503

Update...

I decided to take a chance and use the STI wires even though they aren't identical to the OEM wires. The new wires snapped on to the spark plugs and ignition coils quite easily. The only problem I had was with spark plug 5A. On that particular plug the STI wire is a little bit shorter than the OEM version, which makes for quite the stretch to get the wire to reach from the plug to the ignition coil. I thought maybe I had mixed wires - using a shorter wire where I should have used a longer one - but that wasn't the case. Has anybody else noticed this when using STI wires on a W220? Other than that everything works great and the engine once again purrs like a kitten.