Iridium plugs on 2000 Corolla

I love my Corolla sedan.:icon16: I have 85,000 miles on my 2000 Corolla VE which I purchased new. I have changed the oil (Moble One) and oil filter (K and N) every 7,000 miles and the air filter is a K and N brand so I only clean it once in a while when it seems dirty. This is all the maintenance that I have done on this car since purchase (other than buying new Yokohoma tires) and I am wondering when I should change the iridium spark plugs? It still runs great everyday so should I only change the sparkplugs when I start to have hesitation or starting problems or should I change the plugs just because of the high mileage on the sparkplugs. Also eventhough I still have 40% of the brake pads left, which type and brand of brake pads do any of you like the most for replacement when they are necessary? Thanks.

Thread on pads here:
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=244222

Thread on spark plugs:
http://www.automotiveforums.com/t226473.html

Have similar situation: don't know what to do with
spark plugs (to change or not to change). Iridium or platinum. Thinking about putting in Autolite Platinum for 2002 corolla.

-m.

Well, I went ahead and changed my Iridium plugs with new ones that I bought online for $50 total price for four plugs including shipping. The job was not too difficult but I was glad that I had a Haynes repair manual to refer to. Removing the old plugs required a long extention on the socket wrench to reach the plug deep within the engine. Also removing the coil on each plug was new to me. The coils were not what I would call "easy" to remove because two of them got hung up on the wiring bracket that is very close by to them, so I had to loosen the wiring bracket that was causing the coils to stick. Then the coils popped out pretty easily after the were unstuck from the protruding wiring bracket that was hindering their removal.

The iridium tips on the old plugs were obviously very worn down and even though the car was still running ok with them, it was a good thing that I replaced them because the firing tip looked so much longer on the new plugs. I did not "set the gap" on the new plugs because the repair manual said not to because they were set at the factory to the correct gap.

Once I installed the new plugs, re-installed the coils, reconnected the wires, and put the plastic engine cover back on top of the engine, the engine started right up and ran as smooth as a new Corolla.

I was glad that I had done the spark plug replacement job myself and saved a lot of money that would have gone to pay a mechanic to replace them. The car does seem to have more power than on the old plugs but it is hard to say for sure without putting the car on a computer to compare the difference.

All the best to the other Corolla owners who try to replace their own spark plugs. It was fun and made me feel good after I did it myself.

BillDL

Thanks for your post.

I was seriously thinking about replacing the spark plugs as well. I even found where to buy them – nice website, good prices: http://www.clubplug.net/

But when I checked with local Toyota dealership service, I have been told that the original iridium spark plugs should be changed @ 100 000 miles. Now there is ~ 75 000 miles, so I guess I’ll wait a little…