16/11/2025
What's The Difference Between Iridium And Platinum Spark Plugs?
BY CHINO ORTIZ NOV. 15, 2025 2:05 PM EST
BLKstudio/Shutterstock
For something smaller than your pinky finger, spark plugs have a ridiculously important job: they create a spark that ignites the fuel-air mixture inside your engine's combustion chamber. But here's where the geeky stuff comes in –- the metal at the tip determines just how strong and consistent the spark is, and how long it lasts.
Iridium and platinum are both upgrades from the old-school copper plugs. Platinum melts at about 3,215 degrees Fahrenheit — tough, but not as tough as iridium. Iridium has an insanely high melting point of around 4,400 degrees, making it one of the toughest materials you can stuff into an engine. That strength means iridium plugs can be made with ultra-fine electrodes, which create a cleaner, more precise spark and burn fuel more efficiently.
Platinum plugs sit in the middle. They're more durable than regular plugs (copper-core with a nickel electrode), and less expensive than iridium plugs – platinum spark plugs cost about $4 to $8, while iridium can cost between $8 and $15. Platinum plugs provide reliable performance for everyday driving. They might not fire with the same pinpoint accuracy as iridium plugs, but they'll get you to work and back.
In short, iridium plugs are like laser scalpels — refined and built for precision. They are the ideal performance spark plugs. Platinum plugs, on the other hand, are the dependable multitools of the spark plug world.
Iridium vs. platinum: Choose the right spark plugs for your car
mkos83/Shutterstock
So, do you really need fancy iridium plugs, or are platinum plugs enough? That depends on your car, and how you drive it.
If you're piloting something with a modern coil-on-plug ignition system or a high-performance engine that likes to rev high, iridium is the best choice. Iridium plugs can last over 50,000 miles without any issues thanks to their resistance to wear and erosion. They deliver consistent spark energy, and that makes them ideal for performance-focused or turbocharged engines, as pricey as they may be.
Platinum plugs are no slouch either. They're budget-friendly, can last up to 100,000 miles, and still give you dependable ignition -– especially in commuter cars. Platinum's lower conductivity doesn't matter much for regular driving, where throttle response and combustion efficiency aren't maxed out anyway.
Remember, though, that you shouldn't downgrade. If your car came with iridium spark plugs, you should not replace them with platinum or standard spark plugs — that would degrade your engine's performance. Upgrading from platinum to iridium, though, is not a problem at all. Still, installing iridium plugs in an engine meant for platinum plugs won't magically give you horsepower — longevity and reduced fouling are the benefits you can expect. Choose the type of spark plug best suited to your car. In other words: match the metal to the motor, not the marketing.
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CULTURE
Here Are The Worst Car Myths
BY LAWRENCE HODGE UPDATED: APRIL 21, 2025 5:43 PM EST
Guillermo Legaria / Getty/AP
Some car myths are relatively harmless, while others can cost you money or put your safety at risk. Regardless, they have a surprising ability to hang around, getting passed down over generations before finally arriving here on this list.
We asked readers what they thought were the worst car myths. These were their answers.
Cross Drilled Brakes Are Better
Cross-drilled brake rotors stop faster/are better. This hasn't been true since the 50's now it's just removing metal from a perfectly good heatsink. Sure I'll hear arguments about unsprung weight or "but Porsche does it!". You aren't removing all that much and Porsche casts the holes in the rotors and cryogenically treats them. Drilled rotors suck and are asking to fail, don't believe me go ask Stoptech.
Suggested by: DerFahrt
Cars With Electronic Fuel Injections Need To Be Warmed Up
That you need to warm up your modern EFI car for 10 minutes before driving. Just start it, wait for the idle to stabilize then keep it below 2500rpm until it gets to operating temperature. Your transmission is still ice cold no matter how long you idle.
Suggested by: Rob Coyle (Facebook)
Ralph Nader's book killed the Corvair
IFCAR Wikicommons
No. Unsafe at Any Speed came out in 1965 and didn't even focus entirely on the Corvair. Many of its assertions were correct, but in 1964 a transverse leaf spring was added to take care of the turn-in issue and in 1965 the whole car was redesigned with a fully independent suspension. Corvairs remained in production until 1969, a full four years after Nader's book.
The real killer was cheap gas. A Camaro could be had for the same money and as long as gas was cheap, more people went for the bigger cars with the bigger engines.
Suggested by: Sid Bridge
Lifetime Fluids
"Lifetime" fluids. After two attempts at changing my AWD Ford's PTU fluid in the last 10,000 kms, there's still a fair amount of black sludge from the previous owner's 130,000 kms on the factory fluid. It's in the manual so you can't really blame them.
Suggested by: Quintan Neville (Facebook)
Toyota's Unintended Acceleration
Katherine Welles/Shutterstock
Everyone still thinks it's related to idiot drivers and floor mats instead of a giant corporation lying about a software defect only to eventually be caught. Unfortunately by the time that happened nobody cared anymore and we had committed the lie to memory. Myself included until recently.
Long after the floor mat and throttle pedal fixes, some experts believe that Toyota's unintended acceleration problem was the result of bad code.
Suggested by: 1LE4Me
They Don't Make Them Like They Used To
GM Archives
The idea that cars of the past were "higher quality" because they looked and felt more solid.
The truth is that cars today are far more reliable and durable.
Cars of the past were crap by comparison.
Suggested by: Manwich – now Keto-Friendly
Never inflate your tires to the Maximum PSI or you'll risk a blowout!
Kmpzzz/Shutterstock
Manufacturers will usually recommend a PSI lower than the maximum, mostly because it provides better traction and absorbs bumps and potholes better. Even if your tires are just a little above maximum PSI you'll probably be fine, but you may notice worse handling in the rain, and you might run a slightly higher risk of a blowout *if* you drive over a curb or nasty pot hole. You'll get better gas mileage and have an easier time changing lanes though.
Suggested by: microsoftsam
Low Mileage Used Cars Are Good
Alan Diaz/AP/AP
The lowest mileage used car is best. This is both in normal car shopping and in collector car shopping.
Normal car shopping I hear it all the time, "I want X car only under 10, 15, 20k miles." Usually, it's at the usual used car age of 3-ish years, so most of them are off-lease. In normal times we'll have a range of mileages available for our popular used cars. Most often the lowest mileage ones come from NY, Chicago, NJ, somewhere that they didn't need a car much. So they were street parked, banged up, backed into, and the inside was also trashed because likely not having a garage it's not as easy to clean out. These du*****es will completely pass on the car that was owned locally, by a couple out in the suburbs, kept in a garage, never street parked, and taken to the cabin on the weekends so it's got 40k miles. One needs work, one doesn't, I probably don't need to tell you which is which.
In collector car shopping it's also a myth but for a completely different reason. I'm not talking about restored stuff from decades ago, I'm talking about '80s and on fun desirable cars. If you buy the one that was never driven and is 20 years old with 10k miles, you're just paying more for dried out seals, old oil and tires, and other non-use service needed. Not to say you need to buy a 100k+ mile car, but buy the 20 year old Corvette that has 50k miles over the one owned by the old guy thinking it would be a collector and only put on 5k.
Suggested by: savethemanualsbmw335ix
There's A Rationale For Not Wearing A Seatbelt
Jusmar WIkicommons
You can still find people who think it's safer to drive without your seatbelt buckled because "you want to be thrown clear in an accident."
How these people haven't all been killed off by now is a mystery.
Suggested by: The Ghost of James Madison's Rage B***r
Cars Are The Best Way To Get Around
Damian Dovarganes/AP/AP
The myth that cars are the best way to get anywhere has really ruined our country. Don't get me wrong, cars are great. BUT if you design every city around the car, you are doing it wrong. Walkable neighborhoods are great. Streets that kids can actually ride bikes on are fantastic. Being able to get places without driving is wonderful.
We allowed our governments to outsource our transit and city design to the auto industry, with predictable results.
We need better infrastructure so we don't have to drive all the time. The less we HAVE to drive, the more we GET to drive. Do you really want to drive in the snow/rain/a sh**** weather? No. but you have to. Which means that when you buy a car, you have to think, "I need all wheel drive, might as well buy a CUV".
TLDR: CUVs are 100% a result of our sh**** infrastructure and bad urban planning.
Suggested by: buckfiddious
Pickups Are Good. The Snow
GMC
No, and the only reason I can think this myth persists is that most people associate pickups with 4WD. Pickups are some of the worst vehicles in the snow because they're so light in the rear. You can throw some weight in the back, but you're still not as good as you would be in a Subaru with snow tires.
Suggested by: Ratchet when he's all hopped up on synthetic energon
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QOTD
These Are Your Worst Experiences With A Recall
BY RYAN ERIK KING MARCH 26, 2025 10:30 AM EST
OWS Photography / Wikimedia Commons
Car owners worldwide wish that every vehicle rolled off the assembly line perfectly designed and manufactured, but nobody's perfect. We asked earlier this week for your worst experiences with a recall. The comments section was filled to the brim with tales of mechanical woes and lackluster customer service spanning decades of automotive. There were faulty cars that were refused recall service, and vehicles claimed to be repaired but still had the reported issue. Not to spoil anything, but not even dealership employee are immune from a frustrating recall. Without further ado, here are the most egregious stories:
Shoddy repair just made things exponentially worse
Greg Gjerdingen / Wikimedia Commons
In 1991, I had a 1986 Fiero and there was a recall about the exhaust manifold, which could crack and lead to a fire risk. I was in college and took it into the local Pontiac/BMW place for the recall, which took a couple hours.
When I drove off, the gauges were all messed up, the windows rolled up and down without commands, the headlights came on and turned off randomly, etc . I turned around within 100 feet of the dealership and drove it back, and told them they had messed it up, which of course they claimed they did not. So, I opened the engine hatch/truck and found the problem.
Instead of unplugging the wiring harness to get to the exhaust manifold, they had cut it. They butted the two halves together and wrapped it with tape. They claimed the car was like that when they got it, but I happened to have a picture of the engine bay available. They refused to replace the wiring harness, but they did splice each wire they cut. I ended up with the car running right, but a ball of electrical tape the size of a softball back there.
The entire time, the BMW salespeople kept strongly suggesting that I get a new car. They offered $100 for the Fiero in trade-in because it was messed up.
Submitted by: hoser68
Dreading a date with a recall repair
Benespit / Wikimedia Commons
The Kia Stinger forums are filled with horror stories of people getting their Turbo Oil line recall done and the dealerships having no idea how to work on the engines, Kia quoting a 3-hour job that supposedly takes six and some places thinking they need to drop the whole engine.
I need to get mine done, and I'm worried.
Submitted by: ProjectNeo
Who needs replacements anyway
Sicnag / Wikimedia Commons
My dad had a 1975 Corvette and back around 1978 or so he had a set of Firestone 500 radials put on the car. They were recalled and replaced before there was any issue, fortunately.
Fast forward 20 years and my dad lets me take the car on a road trip about 200 miles from home. My buddy and I hear a noise from the right rear and sure enough, the tire's gone flat. I nurse the car to a safe spot, jack it up and drop the spare from underneath and, boom... there's a 20-year-old Firestone 500 just waiting to finally see daylight.
Submitted by: BuddyS
Not our Saab to deal with
Daboo / Wikimedia Commons
Getting a recall taken care of from a defunct OEM is really difficult... I had a 2006 Saab 9-2X (essentially a rebadged Subaru Impreza) that fell under the Takata recall. I get the recall letter from GM telling me that the car needs to be taken to a certified Saab service center in order to get it taken care of. Problem is, Saab had gone under 8 years prior. Logic would dictate that any GM dealership or even a Subaru dealership could handle it but nope. I had to call GM's customer support line to find an aftermarket shop that GM was willing to work with to handle the recall. The shop was a 2-hour drive in a complete different county from mine.
Submitted by: RemainKalm916
Impacted by my own employer's recall
Cjp24 / Wikimedia Commons
Where to start? Well, my worst experience with a recall was the Chrysler A-604 transmission back in the early '90s. Good old Lee Iacocca pushed this new FWD application 4-speed auto out to the market well before it was fully baked.
It was a disaster on all fronts.
As a young Chrysler District Service Manager at the time, I had the misfortune of dealing with a lot of VERY angry customers who bought new cars that very quickly failed spectacularly.
Typically, the cars went into limp-in mode, which locked them in 2nd gear and made them barely drivable, aside from limping them into one of our overwhelmed dealers who neither had the parts nor enough transmission techs to fix them.
The issue was not so much that there was a recall. It was that we were ill-prepared to fix them, even when the recall came out.
One of the challenges with NHTSA regulations is manufacturers are required to send recall notices out within a very tight time window, regardless if they have the parts or training to do the fix.
Of course, being Chrysler in the early '90s, we ran fast and loose with quality on most fronts. There were plenty of disasters somewhat akin to the A-604, but it was the pinnacle of doing things the wrong way.
I still remember driving in one morning to see one of my dealers when my own company car's transmission went into limp-in mode.
I was not amused.
Submitted by: Factoryhack
Knock, knock! Don't let anyone sue us
HJUdall / Wikimedia Commons
2017 Kia Optima PHEV. Get a recall notification to install anti-knock software to keep the engine from grenading. Never had an issue with knocking or ticking before this. Pick the car up after the work is "done". Within 20 miles of driving, engine starts knocking on the freeway and completely grenades. Between that, hybrid battery failure, wiring harness failure, and a short in the stereo that drained the 12V system, it sat at the dealer for 18 months between Dec 2021 and April 2024
Cherry on top: they offered me a $2000 "goodwill" payment tied to an NDA and a clause that said if I sold the car and the next owner sued them, I was on the hook for the damages. No thank you
Submitted by: dubgasm
Stellarly poor service from Stellantis
HJUdall / Wikimedia Commons
2018 Pacifica hybrid. It was undrivable due to a wiring issue in the transmission. We had to wait 4 months for a new transmission because of the UAW strike. Chrysler did cover a rental.
We're still waiting to get the charging system recall fixed (again) so it doesn't burst into flames when charging. We haven't been able to charge it for over a year, and that's the main reason we bought it over Honda/Toyota.
The first and absolutely last FCA product we will ever buy...
Submitted by: DCnative
A refusal to repair
Michael Gil / Wikimedia Commons
The Hyundai engine recalls on my manual 2014 Elantra GT.
In mid-2021, I got the knock-sensor recall upgrade from Hyundai Canada meant to monitor my engine for signs of engine knocking. It would put my engine into a safety mode if any engine knocking was discovered. Potentially, I could get the engine replaced under warranty. The warranty had been extended to 10 years or 200,000km. I fell within both criteria, luckily.
Early January 2022, the knock sensor engages and I limp back to the dealership in safe mode (can't rev the engine over 2000 RPM in safe mode). Hyundai Canada had the car for 4 weeks, no communication with me. Finally, they gave me back the car, claiming my oil filter was the issue (they said it wasn't OEM and that caused the knock sensor to falsely engage). Next day, the knock sensor kicks in while on the highway as I drove 110kmph; it was like someone slammed on the brakes and I nearly got rear-ended getting off the highway when it happened. I parked the car at home, called the dealership back, told them to come tow the car back and fix the issue and that I wouldn't drive it again until fixed as it was not safe to drive.
For 3 weeks, they wouldn't give me an update or rental. Finally, after 4 weeks, they said they found metal shavings in the oil pan and engine and I got a rental car. 6 weeks total elapsed before I got the car back with a brand new engine, but they made me pay for a new oil pan (they said the warranty wouldn't cover it and it was needed).
Sold the car only a few months later.
Submitted by: Jeffaulburn
A Veloster's handbrake-only challenge
order_242 / Wikimedia Commons
Here in Canada, some Hyundai models have a recall for premature rusting on the brake lines and subframe. My 2015 Veloster was under this recall. As a tech of a Hyundai dealer, I knew it had to be done. The day I drove it in, the brakes were getting worse and worse. After being left in the parking lot for a few hours, the brakes were completely lost and it had to be driven in using the handbrake to stop it.
Submitted by: ThatYoteGal
Acura parked until further notice
Wolterk/Getty Images
The airbag recall for Acura several years ago.... Was told to park my car and not drive until parts became available.... That ultimately was 6 months... Fortunately, my lawyer got Acura to supply a free rental from Hertz for the entire time. The Hertz rental experience is a whole other story and near disaster.
Submitted by: Jdg000
There's no such thing as a free repair
Heritage Images/Getty Images
I got a ticket due to a recall once. I brought my Miata in for an annual inspection/preventative maintenance. The recall fix required a computer reset, which they did be
