At 40,500 miles I figured I should tackle replacing the spark plugs. After weeks of procrastinating I finally got enough courage to change the plugs this morning. Nowhere near as difficult or as time consuming as I imagined. Total time was 3.5 hours. The part that was most concerning was breaking the old plugs loose and the noise the old plugs made as they were being removed. My assumption is as the built up carbon gets scraped off the plugs by the head threads it makes sickening sound, similar to a rusty bolt getting ready to break. Held my breath on everyone, thankfully no drama.
Anyone with a modest amount of mechanical skills should be able to do this with no issues. Thanks to all who wrote up and added the DIY threads. They were very useful as reference along the way.

Chris

 

Good job! This DIY stuff gets under your skin... it did mine. After doing my first brake job, I felt proud.... then angry ..... dealers are just over the top with this stuff.

Can you show a pic of a plug that made the noise?

Peace
Bruce in Philly

 

At 40,000 miles, I would have replaced all six coils and plugs. Ask me how I know. At 35,000 CPO covered just two cracked and I did them all while in there with new plugs. Preventive while you in there.

 

Bruce, Here is a picture of the offending plug. Yes, once you start working on the car you realize most of these jobs are not as difficult as the dealer may lea you to believe.

Hilltopper, Yes, In retrospect I probably should have. I'll be that much more confident when I have to change them, hopefully not to soon.

 

mine had that same rough feeling coming out and I had much less miles.... I guess that s why they call for 4 years no matter the miles.