how often should you change your plug wires
#2
04-20-2008, 02:25 PM
Road Warrior
RE: how often should you change your plug wires
Is the bike running right? Plug wires are not a wear item. Unless there are problems,12k is way too soon to be worrying about this.
#3
04-20-2008, 02:49 PM
Road Captain
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RE: how often should you change your plug wires
Unless you've got a definite problem (like one cylinder not firing reliably), and you've traced it to the wire, I can't think of any reason why you would EVER have to change out the wires. As Uncle Scrooge said, they don't wear so there would be no reason for them to stop working.
There's a theory in maintenance about replacing things at a certain lifespan, regardless of actual performance, kinda like what you're asking. In aviation, they're known as "lifed" items. Their "lives" are normally determined statistically or through experience based on known (or predicted) failure modes and are usually on things which fail without warning and are critical to a safe operating system. The idea is that if you think (or experience has shown) that a part will typically fail at point X in time, replace it at, say, 80% of X, so you never risk getting too close to the end of it's normal servicable life. Logic says this would mean you would never have failures of these components.
The only downside of this is another factor known as "infantile failure". If you look at a failure analysis of most components or assemblies, they are more likely to fail within the first few days/cycles/hours of usage and normally down to manufacuring or installation failures (which is why extended warranties are basically a scam). So, there is actually a chance that, by replacing a servicable and reliable item with a brand-spanking new one, you are installing a defect that wasn't there before. Lifed items are normally bench tested to run them out of the infantile failure period before being put into service.
Sparkplug wires are neither wear items, nor are they lifed, for the reasons alluded to above.
All of which means, if it ain't broke, don't fix it! And that applies to anything on the bike, car, refridgerator, washing machine, etc. (or have I just said a bunch of stuff you already knew??)
There's a theory in maintenance about replacing things at a certain lifespan, regardless of actual performance, kinda like what you're asking. In aviation, they're known as "lifed" items. Their "lives" are normally determined statistically or through experience based on known (or predicted) failure modes and are usually on things which fail without warning and are critical to a safe operating system. The idea is that if you think (or experience has shown) that a part will typically fail at point X in time, replace it at, say, 80% of X, so you never risk getting too close to the end of it's normal servicable life. Logic says this would mean you would never have failures of these components.
The only downside of this is another factor known as "infantile failure". If you look at a failure analysis of most components or assemblies, they are more likely to fail within the first few days/cycles/hours of usage and normally down to manufacuring or installation failures (which is why extended warranties are basically a scam). So, there is actually a chance that, by replacing a servicable and reliable item with a brand-spanking new one, you are installing a defect that wasn't there before. Lifed items are normally bench tested to run them out of the infantile failure period before being put into service.
Sparkplug wires are neither wear items, nor are they lifed, for the reasons alluded to above.
All of which means, if it ain't broke, don't fix it! And that applies to anything on the bike, car, refridgerator, washing machine, etc. (or have I just said a bunch of stuff you already knew??)
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#8
04-20-2008, 04:23 PM
RE: how often should you change your plug wires
I changed mine at about 50k miles when I found one of the terminals that goes on the plug rusted and about ready to collapes.
