Broken spark plug :(

Princey

Princey

Princey

Soldato
Joined
26 Apr 2003
Posts
5,746
Location
West Midlands
Hey guys,

I have a 2007 '56' Astra VXR with 50,000 miles. It was taken to stage 2 at TMS in Milton Keynes last November when the car was on 36,000 miles. Along with stage 2 I had a full service there and the NGK Iridiums fitted. Fast forward 10 months and 14,000 miles later.

I was driving at 60mph on a duel carriageway and then the car started to splutter badly and the ECU light was flashing. I pulled into a BP straight away and jumped out to be greeted with the car firing on what sounded like 2 cylinders and a loud metallic clanging noise. I shut the engine straight away and checked the errors codes and as I thought the related the a miss fire. I got a tow back to my house as I didn't want to drive it incase I made the issue worse.

When I got home I removed the coil pack and pulled the plugs out and below is what I found. My Questions is, is there likely to be engine damage with the tip of the spark plug entering the chamber and where would I stand with TMS in sorting this out if there is damage? Also from the look of my plugs how does it look like the car was running?

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dsc00749y.jpg

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I would start with a new set of plugs and see how it runs, the tip if the plug is quite small so with any luck it's exited the engine and not damaged the piston or valves.

Also there is a possibility that it could have passed through the turbo, with it being quite small possibility of damage is smaller.

I'd be a little bit concerned about the rust on the bottom of the plugs, was there any water in the plug well?
 
Don't want to be the bringer of bad news, but as part of plug 2 is missing I'm guessing it's in your engine. I'd recommend getting it looked at, boroscope inside the cylinder but more than likely you'll need head off to have a look.

Damage, you could be lucky and it be ok, or it could be damaged piston and/or damage bore. As Maz said, it's a small part so might have passed with no damage, however it's best to be on the safe side imo before firing it up again.

Plugs wise, I think 1 and 3 look ok, 2 is obv missing a bit as you said and 4 does look different, exact reason I don't know.

As to getting TMS to do anything, depends, if you can prove it was something they did that caused it you might get something.
 
Depends, on my 200 I check them every 4000 miles or 6 months to be on the safe side.

I'd at least get in touch with TMS to see what they have to say for themselves
 
But then when you look at the state of #2 compared to the others, it makes you wonder what was going on in that engine to do that? That surely would be the responsibility of TMS if they mapped the car.
 
It's probably fine. I don't run flters on one of mine and it's ingested all sorts of stuff over the years and spat an unleaded valve seat out.

Essentially, I know it's small, but if the bit was still in there you'd be able to hear it rattling around. Put a new set of standard plugs in and if it's running ok then forget about it.
 
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