Oil on sparkplugs
 

I have an appointment for it friday at the dealer. But though I could get good info here. First off I had an oil change done at the dealer last month and in between I had to replace just a bit over 1 quart of oil.. I took the sparkplugs out and the treads on them were wet from what seems like oil. I pulled out the light and looked down the hole onto the piston and three of them were wet should of took pictures. Is this a problem? Anyone have had this problem before?? And how much oil would I have to burn before they would consider doing waranty work???

is there oil in the intercooler/pipes? oil in the intake/tip?

oil is getting in somehow, and there's a few possible points of entry.

No! Intercooler/pipes are super clean and so is the intake/tip.. It's comming from inside the engine.

If there is oil in the plug wells, your valve cover is leaking. That, or whomever changed the oil dumped a whole quart into the valve cover and it down in there.


Tapadatass

I had that same exact problem. If you search for my thread you'll see I emptied some oil and bought new plugs and the problem was gone.

Tapadatass

Fucking Tapatalk jacking up my shit.

Are the electrodes on the plugs oil fouled? If not, you're not getting oil in the combustion chamber b


Tapadatass

Electrodes were an brownish amber colour..

I have just read your thread boy the serch bar sucks.. It is exactly the same problem I too was getting the pops and some KR's too I might have to order new plugs again..
Thanks..

i just pulled/cleaned/gap-checked my plugs this morning. there should be ZERO oil on them, they should be dry and black. hit them with some brake cleaner and a wire brush, make sure they're dry before putting some anti-seize on the threads and reinstall. i had issues with step-colder plugs 'fouling-out' (ITVs and NGKs) but now i clean them when i change my oil and everything's smooth.

hopefully the correct amount of oil (5.5 quarts with a filter change seems to be just about right in my experience, give or take) and cleaned up plugs will straighten you out.

Update!!

Came back from the dealer... Turns out it's the injectors that are leaking. The gas mixes with the carbon in the chamber made a liquid that looks like oil and that doesn't smell like gas what so ever. :wtf1: I have 56000Km on the car and I have done seafoam once already.. The service manager wanted to talk to me. I though he wanted to talk about my mods :zx11pissed: but he said that Mazda, GM, Ford and what ever other car maker that have direct injection engines had made a study of the gas here in atlantic Canada because this happen more often here then anywhere else. They have found that the additive in the gas cause DI engine to carbon up like crazy. Some how this would cause injectors to leak!!! story short they want to impose a once a year service to decarbon the engine!!! not a big deal I'll just have to do seafoam more often and I should be good.

@chimmike;

I changed the plugs in my 3 last weekend, and 3 of the 4 plugs had wet threads for a considerable amount of the thread (over half way up). Car has rarely even been seeing boost lately, just in full commuter-mode. The plugs that were in there were 2 step, and probably way too cold IMO. I threw in 1 step NGK's, we'll see how they look next time i have them out.

Interesting, so they recommend seafoam in the fuel tank to run thru and clean the injectors? Or seafoam the engine itself?

Dustin,

Do you happen to remember which 2 plugs where the most wet?

2-4 iirc. I have 2 that are generally wet on my 6 too, 3 & 4.

Thanks Dustin. :01:

Hahaha, sooooooo......

What are your thoughts? Or are you just messing with me?

I'm still not 100% sure what's causing the issue. Compression is fine on both cars, no leaks on valve cover, no oil in the plug wells. My biggest hunch at this point is either blow out or detonation (leaning more toward blow out than detonation though).

I'm just surprised at how far up the threads the oil appears.

I'm not messing with you DJ. LOL. I defer to your judgement 99% of the time (the other 1% I can't understand WTF you are talking about because my brain can't handle it).

Chimmike's plugs were a touch wet and I was seeing if I couldn't dig something up.

As soon as I saw it, I asked him if the wells were wet, but no go.

I asked you the plug #'s to try to see if there is some type of pattern so we could start to develop some type of theory.

I can tell you first hand, those threads are no mil spec etc. A hard rain once jacked me up and I had water straight down the threads onto the electrode and it actually caused me a studder.

The water story is actually good to hear IMO, makes the blow out theory all the more likely. Only reason i was pondering detonation was simply cause i figured it'd take a substantial amount of cylinder pressure to push oil up the threads.

Next time i pull plugs, i'll be sure to take pics if any are wet.

My issue was two-fold when I had major wetness on my plugs. Bad HG and Valve guides. Just throwin ideas in the mix.

Since the plugs thread into the head, a head gasket leak wouldn't put oil on the plugs, it'd drip down lower on the block. And my 6 definitely has 2 bad valve guides on the corresponding cylinder. So that's definitely a potential cause. On the 3, who the hell knows if they leak or not. I wouldn't be surprised if they did... but it's hard to tell since all the valves are disgusting.

I'd also suspect leaky injectors based on the carbon I could see on my pistons (which were brand fucking new not more than 3-4 months ago....but 8k miles ago now)

I was wondering the same thing. I have 27k and have never even put injector cleaner or anything in this car. Guess it wouldn't hurt to dump some sea foam in the tank next oil change.

I just tossed in a can of seafoam on the fillup this morning.

I'm tempted to pop the spark plugs out and spray some deep creep or carb cleaner directly on the pistons as well.

Remember that our plugs seal against the head at the tapered seat above the threads; meaning that the threads are not sealed from the combustion chamber and oil/gas can wick up the threads.

Dustin, if the plugs you pulled are two steps colder than stock on a nearly stock engine, I'd be inclined to assume that oil on the threads is due to them not getting hot enough and experiencing blowout/misfires.

Even the 3 has a 3076 on it, so neither car is really close to stock. But i don't drive the 3 like a race car hardly ever. Can't risk breaking it quite yet.

Great point on the plug seal. Makes perfect sense.