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Broken spark plug electrode

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6.1K views 9 replies 4 participants last post by  SeanC  
R
#1 ·
Hey, so his is an odd one. I was on my way from Kalamazoo to Ann Arbor, MI (about an hour and a half to 2 hour drive) and my car started to miss fire in the first cyclinder. I pulled the plug last night to find that he electrode was broken off. I used a friend's fiber optic camera and it appears that the electrode made it out of the cylinder without breaking anything, but I've never really seen or heard of this before. Should I chalk this up to a manufacturing error, or could this be indicative of another problem? I attached a photo of the broken spark plug next to the one from cylinder 2 if that helps at all.
Thanks,
Rob
 

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Discussion starter · #8 ·
Actually they are NGK Iridium plugs. We took a look in the cylinder and there weren't any pieces left in there, and everything seems to be in tact. Until something changes I guess I have to assume what was left of the plug went through the valve and it's now in my catalytic converter.

I had a mechanic friend come look at it and he said he had only seen something like that once and it was on a race car. Essentially the plug overheated and exploded, but I haven't been riding it hard or anything. Faulty part or something else? I suppose I'll find out on my way to work tomorrow...
 
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