E3 Spark Plug Problems on '01 T&C

[TCGrove]

2001 Chrysler Town and Country 3.8L with 165,000 miles. I was running Bosch+4 with no real trouble. I had the windshield wiper cowling off and decided to replace all the plugs while the rear plugs were so easy to reach. The E3 plugs ran fine to begin with. We made a 1600 mile round trip the next week and no problems. After 4000 miles I started having a random mis-fire, and things got worse fast. The symptoms: ran OK while cool, a few mis-fires at idle, loss of acceleration, a lot of mis-fires under load (fine though when on cruise), and even a backfire or two. I was convinced it was the coil pack or wires. I tested the resistance on the wires and didn't find anything. I replaced the coil pack since I didn't have a good way to test it...no improvement. How could it be my new plugs??? Then I started reading the reviews. I replaced the E3 plugs with Bosch Platinums after only 4,264 miles, and the problem went away. I would not recommend these plugs. I hope this saves someone else some time and trouble......

[b1lk1]

Hell, I would not recommend the Bosch +4s either. Stick to Champion Platinums or even better, NGK platinums (NOT IRIDIUM) and call it a day.

[TCGrove]

I've read that too about Champion Platinums and NGK's being good on T&C's. I never really had a problem with the Bosch +4's though. I replaced the crappy E3 with the cheapest Bosch Platinum (thin wire) since I didn't want to start throwing more and more money at the problem. I keep track of all my mileage and I got the following results:
Bosch+4 20.2 mpg (on 30,603 miles of driving)
E3 3.66 18.9 mpg (on 4,264 miles of driving)
Bosch Platinum 21.2 mpg (first tank full)