How difficult can this be? When I had my (non-LR) mechanic do the 60K he said it was a major pain and that the wires were fine - he just did the plugs. Well, the truck is mis-firing again (300 miles later) so I opened the hood and ran the truck in the garage at night and I can SEE the sparks coming out of the wires, especially when the truck is cold.

Now, I am just a mechanical engineer which means I don't know a whole lot about electricity, but I do know it's best kept INSIDE the wire. :-)

So I called the LR service advisor today and he told me that the intake manifold has to come off to change the wires - which really ticks me off because I had intake gaskets done last summer with 57k on the truck and dammit they coulda advised me to change the wires then .... but that's typical of LR service .... ie do all you can to squeeze the most $$ out of the customer.

But I digress.

How hard is it to change these wires? Last thing I changed wires on was a 350 Chevy and this ain't the same animal. I have not poked around the aft end of the engine where the wires come off of the coil, but it looks pretty tight.

Anyone have a technique / trick for this so I can do this myself and avoid what's looking like another $1,000 repair bill?

Thanks,
Bob

 

Well they did mention to change the plug wires last year because you didnt need them and they were doing you a favor by not taking your money at that time.
Could they have maybe mentioned it? Yes.
Do a search for "how to change plug wires without removing the IM" because you are supposed to remove the intake plenum.
But you can do it without doing that.
Apex performance sells the Magnecor plug wires that DiscoMike recommends.
Dont go cheap on the wires as you dont want to be doing this again anytime soon.

 

I bent a flat head screw driver slightly which enabled me to pry off the wires from the coil pack without having to maneuver my hands down there. (This is a common trick that is used)

I know Discomike has walked many people through the process if you PM him.

Make sure you keep track of which wires go where since it is a bitch to mess with them!

At the end of the day my knuckles were still bleeding...but what a since of accomplishment to not bow down to the LR dealership..haha.

 

Thanks for the advice ... I'll try that.

Spike, with all due respect, saving me $100 one day to charge me $1,000 three months down the road (the truck started missing in October) is not doing me a favor - and imho a good service advisor should know that - that's why they are advisors and not order-takers. Even the advisor I spoke to today at the LR dealer admitted they should have caught that.

 

I agree with you 100%, they should have pointed it out to you.
Having delt with many service advisors I dont trust them any farther than I could through them.
You can know as much as them just by reading the maintenance schedule in your owners manual.
You come in for service, they scan your VIN# and on the computer screen is everything that is recommended by the manufacture for your model, if it aint on the screen they aint gonna recommend it.
The tech should have said to the advisor that you needed new wires too.

 

Bob,
e-mail me your tele number and I'll walk you thru it.

 

i just did my wires and plugs back in january.

in reality you can swap the wires in under an hour if you do everything exactly right and know how to do this with your eyes closed.

count on 3 hours of time. and make sure when you plug the new wires into the coils that the boots snap in place well. i had to go back in and snap 2 in place i thought were good to go.

its a bit tight back in the coil area so if you have a screwdriver to sacrifice do so, or if you have a small set of hands that helps. i was able to do the job by hand but i do not have huge hands.

really the toughest part is snaking the metal tubing out of there

 

Well I have my 8mm magnecors from Apex on the way. Everyone makes a big deal out of this so I am a little worried. But just looking under the hood it looks like its just a matter of prying off the old wire with a bent tool of some sort that will reach down in there and then unsnaking the wires from behind the engine. Then putting on the new the wire (the caps just press on?). Then repeating for the rest of the wires. Is that it? Are there any pitfalls or things I want to make sure I don't touch?

 

You may want to talk with me or someone who has done it a couple of times, especially since you have secondary air injection.

 

OK mike when I get the wires in this week I will PM you. Thanks for the offer I appreciate it.