Hi all I'm new to this forum and I need a bit of advice. I noticed on a previous post by Ray Irving that he had the same problem that we are experiencing with our Ford Ka at the minute.
We took it for a service yesterday and when we got it back it was running like a bag of hammers. I contacted the garage who service it and the mechanic came to our house and said it was our spark plugs. He said he couldn't change them as they had rusted in but told us to bring the car back on Monday and he would to fix this problem by way of lubricating the spark plugs and gently removing them. If that failed, he said he was going to take the cylinder head off and remove them that way, at a cost of a further £80. Bearing in mind the spark plugs were supposed to replaced when the service was done at no extra cost so to charge us an extra £80 as well as the £50 we had already paid was a bit steep.
When the mechanic left our home we popped the bonnet and discovered that he had indeed tried to remove the spark plugs and had snapped a couple but hadn't told us to save his own skin. We contacted the garage and said could we come and pay for the spark plugs he had and we would fit them ourselves. He told us that we would have to pay £15 for the spark plugs which I thought was a bit of a cheek considering he had broke them in the first place.
Now we have three snapped spark plugs that we can't remove and they are stuck fast due to the rusting. We don't want to take the car back to the garage we initially used as he is going to charge us an arm and a leg. But now we are stuck with a car that won't go. I noticed that Ray Irving had a similar problem. I would like to know whether it is going to be expensive for another garage to remove the snapped spark plugs?
And as for whether Ford should compensate Ford drivers for the design fault then YES they should as it is their fault that we are in a predicament in the first place. Ours is a 51 reg and has had no other problems with apart from this. I would much appreiciate some advice from other Ford Ka drivers who have had this problem as well.
{Updated to make use of drop down menus that weren't previously available when thuis post was first written}
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 09/10/2009 at 11:17
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It will be a cylinder head off and chip the old plug out job, then helicoiling to accept new plugs. I wouldn't go back to that garage again, except to get my money back for the service! Giving a car back to a customer with two plugs missing is inexcusable.
As for Ford's design fault. Yes it is and yes it isn't. Ford have made this design of engine in years, but the extended service intervals of the spark plugs for the Ka cause them to rust themselves shut if left too long. Just make sure the plugs are removed once per year, and copper grease smeared on the thread.
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Mike Farrow
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Lizford
Alight from your horse; you're turning a routine occurrence into an unnecessary drama. Yes; these plugs now often rust in. In the olden days [1976-on] these engines used to leak oil from the rocker gaskets, filling the plug recesses, which largely prevented this problem, until Ford's improved gaskets stopped the leakage and now these plugs can often seize in.
This is a problem that occured on your car; it's not the garage's fault that they were the unfortunates that found it. OK; they broke the ceramic on the old, worn-out, plugs while struggling with their removal, but that is impossible to avoid. They certainly haven't handled their customer relations well, but at only £50 for a service [was that for real?] you presumably get to deal with a mechanic, not a smoothly-efficient, name-badged, service manager.
Just return the car to the garage and instruct them to carry out any extra work necessary to correct this emergent problem. It's quite pointless berating them about returning it to you without comment; they probably felt a bit sheepish too - these things happen when people are under pressure. At the quoted prices nobody's getting exploited and when it's all sorted, your lowered blood-pressure will help regain an appropriate perspective.
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I have removed lots of these on mk3 fiesta"s by welding a piece of bar into the hole on what is left of the spark plug.( I must stress that you have to be careful once you have snapped the plug that bits of ceramic are not allowed to drop into the combustion chamber as they will wreck the engine, not a problem for anyone with half a brain to achieve as even i can do it without losing any bits)
The heat from the mig also has the benefit of making the remaining plug easier to come out.
I personally cant understand how any competant mechanic has to remove the head to do this job when ten minutes sat down thinking of a solution would come to my way of thinking.
Finally you would have thought that after he had snapped one plug he would have stopped rather than go on for a record.
My advise?
Take business to a better garage and once plug situation is sorted either by my method or any other way make sure that "coppaslip" is put on the plug threads prior to refitting and quality plugs are used and they are taken out once a year irrespective of what the "book" may say.
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sorry mfarrow {P} it just took me 20 minutes to write my post i wasnt plagarising
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sorry mfarrow {P} it just took me 20 minutes to write my post i wasnt plagarising
That's OK, I'm not a competant mechanic ;-)
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Mike Farrow
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Hi
My spark plugs had been in my car for over 5 yrs. I snapped 3 out of 4 of them.
I popped down the local motor factors, bought some good quality screw extractors, popped them on my socket and, with a bit of heat from a blowlamp, out they came.
Took longer to get the extracors from the shop than it did to do the whole job.
One thing I would recommend if you can still get your engine running is to warm it up prior to removing old plugs.
The car is a mk 3 fiesta, why the head needs to come off baffles me
Good luck
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I have maintained youngest son's 1.1 Fiesat (1993) for 4 years. No plug problems. Replaced them every 20k miles, coppaslipped threads and inspect once a year.
I have to say that the above is routine maintenance. To suggest Ford is at fault is to blame them for brake pads wearing out.
madf
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Hi My spark plugs had been in my car for over 5 yrs. I snapped 3 out of 4 of them.
Blimey, no wonder some people are having problems! I change the plugs once a year on my cars irrespective of mileage - that equates to 4000, 8000 and 18000 miles on the various steeds. They're not exactly expensive!
I can see however that those not of a mechanical bent follow manufacturers recommendations, but some things are best done on a calendar rather than mileage basis.
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Had same problem on an 02 plate car with 68,000 on clock. Two plugs went.
Sucked all ceramics out with vac and used an an eazy out wth loads of heat (get plug glowing if poss) Got to use heat otherwise won`t work.
Saved £300 and 3 days of road.
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Lizford,
The mechanic is not responsible for your broken rusty spark plugs. So don't go thinking he should pay for the 80 pound fee to fix the problem. It's not his problem it's your problem, your spark plugs.
Who serviced it last time did they change the plugs and when was it?
The mechanic should have told you the plugs had snapped, you should tell him that not to tell you was a bad idea.
Why did you take the car home if it was running badly?
Others have posted possible solutions to get the plugs out without taking the head off. You could ask another gargae what they would do and ask them if they could do it.
Whatever garage you do use to remove the plugs will not be responsible for further damage caused trying to fix your car.
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Forgot to say,
That as the spark plug change was included in the service, the most you can argue is that he should give you 4 new plugs free to take away with you. Not because he broke yours but because the new ones were included in the service.
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Not a lot to add here - a messy and unfortunate business.
I do blame Ford for this however as their bean counter department designed out the crushable steel washers fitted to most plugs. Ford use a taper seat which, together with an antediluvian iron head and extended service intervals pretty well guarantees a problem. The OE Ford plugs don't even have plated bodies.
I hope you get this engine sorted out with minimal fuss - I would suggest a good independent garage.
659.
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My 1997 Fiesta 1.3i Encore did exactly the same thing, the plugs weld themselves into the head and are a mare to get out......if you are either really unlucky and they really are fixed in tight as tight can be or you have no patience.
3 of mine came out after an hour or twos struggle but one would shift only a tiny amount and then it wouldn't budge any further.
So, I took to dousing the plug when the engine was hot and cold with WD40 for about 4 days, 2 or 3 times a day.
Then I went for it.
Once I'd got it started to move a little more I wound it out until it would stop and put on a squirt of WD and then I wound it back in and repeated this for about 15 minutes and finally as it eased I used an extending bar (to about 2.5ft) on it and kept on winding until it came out.
No expensive head work and no massive drama's.
I know it won't be for everyone but I'm sure a lot of this problem boils down to people refusing to give this a little time (what's a week - or even 2 - of WD-ing compared to having the head off and some expensive engineering work?).
As has been said before, they keep adding bell and whistles around it but this design of engine has been around for donkey's years basically it is extremely sound (if decidedly lacking in 'flash') and goes waaaaaay back but todays plugs that will happily last 2 or 3yrs+ haven't.
They are the reason for this annoying problem (I'm sure I've read of plug manufacturers putting a coating on now to stop this?).
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Plus-Gas is far superior to WD-40 as a penetrating fluid.
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The only thing I would think of to do, is start the engine to warm the engine up to let the metal on the head expand, then use Silkolene silkopen and spray onto the plugs, this aerosol contains graphite, which is suppose to reduce the torque levels when removing bolt etc.
Here is a link to a supplier:
www.710supplies.com/shop/silkaerosols.htm
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Surely the application of copperslip to the threadsa would prevent this happening, then again it'll take all of 15 Seconds per plug.
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OP says 3 plugs snapped off - starting the engine will be tricky! LOL
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Armitage Shanks
I wondered about that? There's no way that the car could have been driven home with even one plug snapped at the thread level; so I was working on the assumption that it must have been the plugs' ceramic insulator that was broken and they'd just bodged them back together "for now." [Sounds like someone was having a "bad hair Friday!"]
If it can't be started; then draining and a few fills with boiling water from a kettle then a freezer aerosol on the plugs is one option. A repeated long soak with penetrant usually works though.
As to the use of cast-iron heads; imagine this scenario with an alloy head.... Simca 1100 ring any bells anyone?
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I wondered about that? There's no way that the car could have been driven home with even one plug snapped at the thread level
My car will start and run on two cylinders. I believe Ford's limp-home mode works like this.
Just don't try it if you've got a catalyst.
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Mike Farrow
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All Ford Ka's have catalysts.
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I wondered about that? There's no way that the car could have been driven home with even one plug snapped at the thread level
Yes it could,but very much doubt on 2 cylinders,it would miss but only as if one ht lead missing,so it could and will run on three
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Steve
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Steve
By "thread level" I meant below the taper seating where these usually snap off when the thread seizes. Even one plug snapped there would have been absolutely ear-shattering as the whole ceramic core blows out leaving an open hole through the threaded section.
You wouldn't believe the noise level of an engine that's blown a plug clean out? I've seen cases where people bailed out of the car in panic - it's that loud. No garage could have returned it sounding like that.
I think the original post must refer to broken ceramic insulators causing a misfire [the usual meaning of a "broken spark plug."] As you say; a normal car is perfectly drivable on three cylinders.
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>>I think the original post must refer to broken ceramic insulators causing a misfire [the usual meaning of a "broken spark plug."] As you say; a normal car is perfectly drivable on three cylinders.
I understood your meaning,but engine will still run without plug in, though it would be noisy due to compression loss through that plug hole-and even more so with remains of plug still there ie without its inards.
My point, though not put properly, was that its unlikely one would run on 2 cylinders as mentioned by another poster.
sorry to confuse
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Steve
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My point, though not put properly, was that its unlikely one would run on 2 cylinders as mentioned by another poster.
Try it. It'll be slow, will stink of petrol, but still goes.
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Mike Farrow
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Try it.
... in an old car
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Had a plug blow completely out of the head on a 2CV6;had to wire the plug and lead to the engine to complete the circuit(shared spark) but then drove it 3 miles home so I could remove the head and get it helicoiled.
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