Howard!!! this is for you...

[Poyzinous]

This guy ran 84,000 miles on regular, never realizing he needed premium. Look at his spark plugs... No one better start a 87/91 octane argument over this either. Or I will own you.

[AZhitman]

The sad part is, he'd probably try and sell that POS as "well-maintained".

[pfarmer]

This guy ran 84,000 miles on regular, never realizing he needed premium. Look at his spark plugs... No one better start a 87/91 octane argument over this either. Or I will own you.

No picture here, is this a Craftsman lawn mower?

Perry

[Poyzinous]

No, the 4 other plugs were in the trash... and what do you mean.. you can't see the pic?

[fatire_mtb]

no pic, just a white box with a red dot

[tollboothwilley]

Your picture link is incorrect. We'd love to see the picture...do it right this time

[Poyzinous]

I'm on my phone right now... greg managed to see it (I assume) . Someone fix it pls...

[pfarmer]

This guy ran 84,000 miles on regular, never realizing he needed premium. Look at his spark plugs... No one better start a 87/91 octane argument over this either. Or I will own you.

Looks like blowby especially for the one on the right.

Perry

[Focusedintntions]

Yeah it'd be awesome to be able to see the pic and not just a red X....

[Poyzinous]

now?

[awdjdmtalon]

Holy Lean Burn Batman!

The one in the back looks like it has some oil on it. But the electrode and ground are Lean on that one as well. How does that happen?

[SteveTheTech]

The amount of carbon build up from burnt oil, unchanged oil, and inferior air filters. I don't know the whole history on this car. I briefly met this car and there is allot of work to be done. This could be fixed but it is not cheap, this type of job is all labor and requires the top end to be removed and cleaned and anything and everything that can be changed should be.

After I replaced the plugs I took the car our and drove it like I stole it. Short burst of high load high RPMs cleared out some of the gross amounts of carbon that had accumulated within the intake tract. It was originally in for a CEL and rough running condition. After checking the service history I realized this was the second time in for a P0300 this time accompanied by a lean miss. Last time it got coils but warranty doesn't replace the plugs. After replacing the plugs I started it and the STFT and AF sensor reading were still really lean and it was puffing black smoke.

I have not seen a carbon sludged Infiniti like this in a while. I have seen people push 130k on OE plugs and not have them look like that. This is an example of the extremes.

EDIT-Gabe I fixed your OP pic

[pfarmer]

Holy Lean Burn Batman!

The one in the back looks like it has some oil on it. But the electrode and ground are Lean on that one as well. How does that happen?

Blow by is one way and I am not speaking of piston rings.

Perry

[pfarmer]

This guy ran 84,000 miles on regular, never realizing he needed premium. Look at his spark plugs... No one better start a 87/91 octane argument over this either. Or I will own you.

Only if you insist (based on the pictures only) that this is purely an octane issue.

There are indications here that issues other than octane are in play.

Perry

[SteveTheTech]

Perry you are right there are a few other factors that are at work here. Long term neglect and poor fuel quality are the things we could get the owner to admit too. From what I see everyone always uses premium and perform maintenance in excess of what their car actually says. There is no need to lie to us the more we know the more we can do to help.

[pfarmer]

Perry you are right there are a few other factors that are at work here. Long term neglect and poor fuel quality are the things we could get the owner to admit too. From what I see everyone always uses premium and perform maintenance in excess of what their car actually says. There is no need to lie to us the more we know the more we can do to help.

What I see is an issue of overheating right down to melting.

Typically with out nothing more to go by than the picture you could have the A/F ratio too lean for whatever reason, you could have ignition timing too advanced for the fuel used, engine overheating due to improper fluid levels or fluids used. Incorrect plugs used. The plugs show signs of possible oil contamination contributing to the deposits especially on the plug to the left in the picture.

As far as overheating due to fluids this could be something as simple as air in the water, under drive pulley used causing water pump not to pump at peak efficiency, oil viscosity too high.

Both plugs however show an interesting sign (especially the plug on the right) that probably has to do with their installation that can easily contribute to and in fact can be the major player in most of the failures evident in the picture. Again this is simply looking at the picture of the plugs without knowing what the rest of the picture (the other engine components) actually looks like.

No matter what kind of xxxxxxx tune up is done on this car I would never even consider buying it without a good enough discount to purchase at least a new engine when it becomes necessary (which is probably very soon). I haven't seen plugs in this condition since racing a street 250 Yamagushie on the trail for extended periods of time.

I would not be surprise to see chestnuts being stored in the airbox along with a tuner sitting in front of the ECM trying to squeeze the last little bit of torque out of a starving neglected machine.

Perry

[SVTCOBRA]

Would be very interested to see what Telcoman's(Howard) plugs look like.

[pfarmer]

Would be very interested to see what Telcoman's(Howard) plugs look like.

Probably like 60,000 mile spark plugs as he pays attention to the problems that would present themselves.

Perry

[SVTCOBRA]

Probably like 60,000 mile spark plugs as he pays attention to the problems that would present themselves.

Perry

That's would I would think, but would still like to see. If they didn't look like 60,000 mile plugs, then I would think the reg gas would be the cause more than in the OP since he does take good care of his engine.

[pfarmer]

That's would I would think, but would still like to see. If they didn't look like 60,000 mile plugs, then I would think the reg gas would be the cause more than in the OP since he does take good care of his engine.

I doubt he currently is having any issues based on all the reports he has given. Basically no evidence due to reduced gas mileage and no complaints on how the machine is running.

I believe the plugs in the picture are only remotely related to octane as evident by only one of the many conditions present.

Perry