Oil on Spark Plug

[Hyperlite]

Just swapped out spark plugs on my 2015 for the first time at 90,000kms. Cylinder #1 had a trace amount of oil at the base of the spark plug threads. 2 & 3 were bone dry. However, cylinder 4 had a decent amount if oil all over it. The car hasn’t leaked oil at all in the 6 years I’ve owned it.

Is a bit of oil on the plug potentially normal for this engine, or a sign of impending catastrophic failure…I’m a bit worried.

Plug #1

Plug and cylinder 4:

 

[Subliminal]

Fairly common problem on these cars. Swap some fresh plugs in it and you should be alright. If it gets bad enough to cause misfires you'll need to reseal the cam cradle

 

[Hyperlite]

Ok that’s a relief to hear thanks. Good news was the tips of all 4 plugs were dry and similar colour, so it seems the oil wasn’t getting past the threads.

 

[ChrisMk77]

Ok that’s a relief to hear thanks. Good news was the tips of all 4 plugs were dry and similar colour, so it seems the oil wasn’t getting past the threads.

Yeah oil gets on the threads when you unscrew them, that is not bad for how long they have been in.

 

[Subliminal]

Ok that’s a relief to hear thanks. Good news was the tips of all 4 plugs were dry and similar colour, so it seems the oil wasn’t getting past the threads.

Out of curiosity, do you wait for the car to finish its cold start cycle or do you drive off right away?

 

[Hyperlite]

Honestly that’s not something I’ve paid attention to. I definitely don’t drive off instantly usually, prob about 10-15 seconds on average, but I haven’t actively paid attention to any cold start cycle. Which should I be doing?

 

[Subliminal]

Once the revs fall to normal idle

 

[avenali312]

Once the revs fall to normal idle

I do this every time and have similar looking plugs, but it is a good idea to let it do its thing while warming up. But like mentioned, until it starts to cause misfires, I'll just keep replacing plugs every 60k miles and postpone the cam cradle sealing as long as possible haha.

 

[OceanJack]

I've had worse, actually on my last plug change. I run them about 5k-10k, they were drenched. I did a compression test after and all 4 cylinders were 175-178psi across the 4.

The cam cover definitely needs to be resealed but I don't care enough yet to do so.

 

[PerceivedShift]

Yea, unfortunately resealing the cam cover is not a small job and requires pulling the timing chain off the cam gears. When you do it go ahead and replace the timing chain and be sure to program the ECU through VCDS or OBD11.