I have a 2005 Volvo S60 with 103,000 miles. I take great of it and it is in great condition. Lately I've been getting a little sputtering and hesitation when I first start it up. I need new spark plugs anyway and hopefully that will solve the problem. I'll probably put on a new fuel filter as well. Anyway, I was told by a well known tire/repair chain in St. Louis that I should get double platinum tipped plugs. I want to hear from real Volvo enthusiast. I drive hard, fast, and a true driving enthusiast. I dont care about cost. What kind of plugs do I buy, what brand, and so on and so forth, etc. Thank you.

Scott
St. Louis

 

Id post this in the S60 sub-forum You would get alot more responses...
I Dont know too much on what the s60 needs in terms of plugs, But for example My 850 T-5 runs better with the good old copper plugs. Which is what alot of people use with the 850's. Since I got the ECu mapped and im pushing more boost I went with a little hotter plug, but still copper.

What was their reasoning for recommending them? did they feed you a line about more horse power, and better fuel economy?

When all else fails go to IPD, FCP, or the dealer and get the OEM Plugs..

 

NGK makes really good plugs never had a problem with them. I don't know what came in the S60 but it's a waste of money getting anything above factory. I would also see what people are saying in the S60 sub-forum.

 

I've always like ngk silver's, and I've always had terrible outcomes with platinum in any car i've owned. from N/A VW's to turbo rotary. don't go platinum imo

 

In my V702.5t (2006) I bought a set of pregrapped Volvo-labeled plugs from FCP. No problems. Other than needing two torx drives to remove the cover (one size) and the bolts that hold the coils down (another size) no problem. Unlike in my other cars where I've used Bosch platinum tipped plugs, I saw no especial advantage to non-OEM plugs ever mentioned here or even at other "boy racer" Volvo sites.

 

Volvo plugs. This car runs the best with OE plugs. You can get them online (Tasca) for about the same as you would pay for platinum plugs.

 

For those that are interested, I've got a 05 S60 2.5T that I just replaced the spark plugs on at 73,000 miles. The old Volvo plugs had a gap of 0.035 on all 5 plugs when I took them out. I went with the Bosch FR7DPP+ plug for replacement and it runs like a top. This is an upgraded version of the FR7DPP10 (Bosch no longer makes this plug) which is recommended in the Haynes Manual and it’s also pre-gapped to the 7mm (0.0275) which is required for the car. Even though it’s pregapped, I’d always recommend verifying the gap with a gapping tool, just be very careful. This plug is sold in the Platinum Plus category, but when it came in the box said Super Plus, and listed the electrode was made of Platinum and Iridium. Super Plus’s don’t usually have that makeup so I called a Bosch representative and he said it’s a plug that’s not really in either category because it’s a plug made to the vehicle manufacturer specifications. Bosch Rep also said that the plug had yttrium in it to, but that all Bosch plugs are made with a little yttrium these days. There’s about a half dozen other Bosch Platinum plug part numbers out there that would work in the car, but some may need a bigger gap adjustment than others, and some of them may be made a little different. Bottom line is Spark plugs are always changing a little every couple of years. Even with the Volvo labeled plugs which are supposed to be made by Bosch, the part number is different now from the Volvo plug I took out of my car. There’s no way to tell if the current Bosch recommended Plug is made exactly like the Volvo Plug made by Bosch, but I’m sure it’s a quality product and the car is running good. There’s no reason not to expect to get at least 60K out of these plugs if not more.

 

Do you recommend changing wires at same time as changing plugs? I have an '05 2.6T that has just developed what seems to be a miss. No check engine light. Plug and/or wire maybe? What is likelyhood of bad ignition pack?

 

No wires on these cars....they have coil packs. How many miles do you have on your S60. I changed mine (coils) with about 80K miles on it and it made a world of difference. I highly recommend going with the IPD HD coils as they are actually cheaper than OE and have better performance.

ipd HD Ignition Coil with 103mm Insulator Boot

I also can't say enough how these cars run the best on OE Volvo plugs. You can get a 5 pack from Tasca for $33.91. Part # 8692071

http://www.tascaparts.com

 

Car has only about 66k on it. Ever heard of a plug or pack going bad with that few of miles? I really appreciate the feedback.

 

If it were me, I would start with plugs and then if that doesn't work, change out the coil packs unless you want to go ahead and spend the $250 to $300 for the coil packs from the start. To change the coil packs at a later time without changing plugs would probably take about 30 to 45 minutes. My 05 2.5T has 73,000 on it and I debated changing out the coil packs, but it was running fine so I decided not to, plus I've got an extended vehicle warranty on my car for about another 20,000 so if I have a missing problem, it should be covered under warranty, so I decided not to spend the money at this time. If I was to purchase the coil packs, I'd consider buying the IPD ones, but I don't know enough about them at this time to go with them. They are advertised at a better than factory OEM long life replacement. My concern with them would be increased heat on the top of the plug, but they make quality products so I'm sure they've addressed that issue. In either case I'd recommend putting a small layer of dielectric grease on the inside of the coil where the white insulator part of the plug will touch the coil, but not too much. If you put too much in, you'll just plug up the hole and may cause your plug not to have a good connection with your coil. You definately can't go wrong with either Bosch or Volvo plugs. I think it's all about personal preference and confort level with either. I've known guys that have been using Bosch Platinum plugs for 30 years in any of their vehicles no matter what type of vehicle, and several shops that work on Volvo's use the Bosch plug. If I'd put the Volvo plug in, I would have put in the plug with part number 8692071 which is the current Volvo part number, but the plug that was in my car originally was the Volvo plug with part number 30637308, so it's obvious that Volvo specs have change on the plugs probably for the better as well. As I mentioned in my earlier post, the European Haynes manual recommends the Bosch FR7DPP10 at the OEM replacement. The Bosch FR7DPP+ is the updated version of that plug. Both the Bosch and the Volvo plugs have Made in Germany stamped on the side. Multiple dealerships have stated that the Volvo plugs are made by Bosch but none of them know what the Volvo plug is made out of, and the package doesn't say either. Obviously, the Volvo plug is a good plug, but I like to know what I'm putting in my car, so that is one of the reasons I went with the Bosch plugs plus they cost about $25 for 5. I found a 10% off code for sparkplugs.com when I did a search so I bought mine from there. You can obviously find a source for the Volvo plug which is almost as cheap. IPD also has a reasonable price on the Volvo plug. Whatever you do, don't buy the Volvo plug at the dealership. They're about $75-80 which is ridiculous. Just as a site note, the original coil packs have a Volvo label on the top, but on the side of the coil pack, they have a Bosch label, and I've seen other items under the hood with Bosch labels, so there shouldn't be any reason to doubt a Bosch labeled plug wouldn't work properly or not as good as the Volvo plug. Another thing you want to be sure is exactly what engine/turbo setup is in your vehicle. The part numbers that I listed in my posts are for the B5254T2 engine code. If your car vin # has a 59 in it, you have the same engine. I don't know for sure if all the S60s with the 2.5T have the same engine code, but I do know that there were other engine and turbo combinations in that year model.

 

A plug or a coil pack could easily be bad with that low of mileage. One bad tank of gas can foul up a plug. As I've mentioned, I'm relatively new to Volvo, but I've had other vehicles that have had either a bad plug or a bad coil pack with much lower miles than that. Regardless of how good the product is as a whole, there's always going to be a small percentage that fail prematurely. A dealer or a higher end repair shop would be able to determine which cylinder isn't firing correctly and just focus on that particular cylinder, and they'd only replace the particular coil pack that was a problem (if it actually was the problem) unless you told them you wanted all the coil packs replaced. I'd still start with the plugs and replace all of them, but beyond that, I'd try and trouble shoot which coil pack was bad, or what else could be bad before I started replacing all the coil packs and sinking a bunch of money into unnessary repairs. I wouldn't want to sink the money in replacing all the coil packs only to find out it was something else. Nothing wrong with replacing all the coil packs, but I wouldn't want to at that low of mileage unless I knew for sure that I had a bad one, and then I'd probably only replace the one that was bad. Just what I would do.