Is it worth paying extra for iridium spark plugs? Advantages and disadvantages

Not every motorist will decide to pay a decent amount for one set of candles. In return, manufacturers guarantee increased service life of parts, fuel economy, and easier engine starting in all weather conditions.

But at the same time, some drivers wonder: will the investment pay off? After all, on average, iridium spark plugs cost 5 times more than regular spark plugs. Well, let me explain.

Denso IW20, Denso W20 EPR

It’s not easy to pay about 3,000 rubles for a set of candles, knowing that your neighbor paid less than a hundred for similar ones. All the advantages of an expensive purchase are only in the future: the long mileage promised by advertising, some percentage of daily fuel savings, ease of starting... In addition, there is no need for frequent replacement: on a modern engine this is a labor-intensive and expensive procedure.

We decided to evaluate two polar designs from one reputable company in order to compare not the technology of different manufacturers, but the idea itself embodied in metal, all other things being equal. The choice fell on Denso.

Iridium IW20 are the obvious leaders in miniaturization of the central electrode: only 0.4 mm. It is the thin electrode that promotes better self-cleaning and, accordingly, extends the service life. They were accompanied by the usual W20 EPR-U. The initial difference in cost is approximately fivefold.

Which iridium spark plugs are better?

Let's take a quick look at two of the most well-known spark plug manufacturers using non-standard spark plug materials.

1. NGK. The first company to use iridium to produce durable and erosion-resistant spark plug electrodes. Today it produces several models of iridium spark plugs for various types of internal combustion engines. IFR5E13 spark plugs with an optimal price-quality ratio have gained the most popularity.

1. One of the world's leading companies producing components for ignition systems. Denso iridium spark plugs, despite their rather high cost, show high performance characteristics.

Remember that when purchasing spark plugs with iridium electrodes, you must follow the engine manufacturer’s recommendations:

• the size of the gap between the electrodes;
• resistance in the central electrode;
• heat number.

You can buy spark plugs for your car at the best price in the TopDetal.ru store. Call the phone number indicated in the header of the site or leave a request for a call back.

An increase in CH toxicity indicates disturbances in the combustion process.

An increase in CH toxicity indicates disturbances in the combustion process.
An increase in CH toxicity indicates disturbances in the combustion process.

According to the resource, the count in engine hours is 360:240. In all operational parameters - from consumption to toxicity levels - iridium is also confidently ahead.

Hence the conclusion: if you have an expensive modern car and you put a lot of miles on it, it makes sense to spend money on iridium. But if the car is so-so, and only travels no more than 5 thousand a year, you are unlikely to recoup the investment. Such is the deceit of expensive things...

Mikhail Kolodochkin, and associate professor of the department of internal combustion engines of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Ph.D. Alexander Shabanov

Choosing spark plugs: iridium or regular?

Background

Spark plugs were first modified at the end of the 20th century. Then the racers noticed that reducing the diameter of the central electrode made it possible to achieve an increase in the power of the power unit. We did this ourselves, using a small file - a needle file.

However, such innovations sharply reduced the service life of parts. Manufacturers took this point into account and began searching for an alloy that could increase the service life of spark plugs several times. And such an alloy turned out to be iridium.

Does it make sense to use “long-lasting” candles if you can buy ordinary ones?

Choosing spark plugs: iridium or regular?

Observations

The well-known auto magazine “Behind the Wheel” compared two different types of spark plugs from the same manufacturer, Denso. Fuel consumption was measured over 360 engine hours.

To maintain engine performance, simple spark plugs required 4% more fuel after 180 hours of experimentation. Upon completion, this figure increased to 8.5%.

When the engine was running on iridium spark plugs, an increase in the amount of fuel consumed occurred only after 300 hours of operation. At the end of the experiment, fuel consumption increased by only 3%.

Interchangeability of spark plugs

Table 1. Summary table of interchangeability of hot spark plugs.

Table 2. Summary table of interchangeability of medium candles.

Table 3. Summary table of the interchangeability of cold candles.

Cleaning

If the vehicle suddenly breaks down, you need to check the spark plugs. If, when checking the elements of the ignition system, you notice carbon deposits, you can clean them yourself. How to clean iridium spark plugs? You just need to not deviate from the rules.

Cleaning methods at home:

1. Manually using sandpaper, a metal brush, a stiff hair brush or a nylon brush. This method only works if the deposit is minor. If devices are flooded, you must first dry them and then clean them.
2. You can heat the iridium device until it turns red. But this method is quite aggressive, since high temperatures destroy the ceramic insulation of these devices. And therefore it will serve you no more than 8,000 km. After heating, carbon deposits and residual mixture can be cleaned with a metal brush.
3. Also, devices made of this metal can be cleaned using household chemicals. To do this, you need to pour dishwashing detergent into a basin and dip the spark plug in it. After 12 minutes, the carbon deposits will become soft and can be washed off even with a sponge. Moreover, you need to lower the candle with the contact side down and dip it halfway.

After such a procedure, iridium devices will not be able to function 100%, but the motor will still work.

Cleaning such products with detergent is one of the most effective cleaning methods. Using this method, you can restore the full functioning of the spark gap. All you need to do is leave the device in the solution for 24 hours, clean the electrodes, the spark gap and install everything in place.

But the leader in cleaning iridium spark plugs is the sandblasting method. Sandblasting is a special unit that can be used to clean the surface of metal, stone with sand or other special powder sprayed with a stream of air. In order to properly clean products from carbon deposits, you need to bend the side electrodes. In addition, the candle must be constantly turned over for more effective cleaning.

To ensure that the problem occurs as late as possible, simply use high-quality fuel. High-quality, durable, wear-resistant and economical - all these are iridium spark plugs. The photo below shows what a new device should look like and one that is contaminated with carbon deposits.

The best spark plugs for a car are platinum or iridium

The operation of internal combustion engines is directly related to spark plugs. The durability of the engine, the quality of the spark supply, and traffic safety depend on their correct choice. Platinum and iridium igniters became one of the best sellers, despite their high cost. Let's see which ones are better right now.

Platinum and iridium SZ

Properties of iridium as a material

Innovative air-fuel mixture igniters are manufactured by laser welding of iridium electrodes. Melting point is about 2,500 degrees. Since the beginning of the 21st century, iridium has been used in industry for the production of igniters.

In the industrial industry, not pure iridium is used, but alloys. It is impossible to work with the material in its pure form - it is too fragile, its electrical conductivity is low. But alloys improve the quality of the final product many times over. Alloys are used to make electrodes with much thinner tips. With such components, the engine runs smoother and the car accelerates faster.

Description of iridium SZ

Four iridium spark plugs
Today, more and more motorists are choosing iridium versions of the SZ. As you know, the starting quality of the power unit, engine power, and gasoline consumption depend on the spark plug. According to experts, iridium spark plugs can increase engine operating time. In addition, they improve its power properties. Many potential buyers are scared off by the high cost, so first of all you need to figure out whether it is justified by the high quality.

Is their high cost justified?

As we have already said, the main problem characteristic of iridium options is the high price. For this reason, many car enthusiasts prefer cheaper analogues. But it is necessary to take into account that iridium spark plugs will in any case cost less, unlike platinum options, which are also one of the best. If you believe global manufacturers, this cost is due to the fact that iridium itself is a rare metal - you need to take into account that it is much less common than gold or platinum.

In fact, the formation of such a high price is carried out according to a slightly different principle. Brands that produce SZ are guided by the demand for a particular product, the characteristics of a particular car market, as well as the presence of competitors in this market, etc. Today, the cost of iridium SZs is less than that of platinum ones, but this trend may change. In fact, 20% of the rare metal that is mined on our planet goes into the production of iridium SZ. If we talk about platinum, this metal is mainly used for the production of jewelry, and only a small percentage is used for the manufacture of parts.

Everyone chooses according to their own pocket, because the price of iridium spark plugs is approximately 4 times higher than regular spark plugs. But, if you calculate the price and service life, then the money comes out to the same thing - 4 sets of regular ones or one set of iridium ones (the author of the video is Alexey Z).

An equally important point that determines the high cost is the amount of metal used for manufacturing. Of course, the volume of precious metal during production is minimal. Only two components of the spark plug design are made from iridium - the electrode and the tip of the device. Therefore, with the growing demand for iridium spark plugs, the consumption of this metal begins to increase. Accordingly, an increase in demand, one way or another, will contribute to an increase in prices.

Why iridium?

For many years, the choice of SZ on the domestic market was rather meager. Platinum candles appeared on sale quite a long time ago, but their quality at that time was relatively not particularly high. Global manufacturers have been working for a long time to improve the quality of the device, as well as ensure the highest reliability, operating time and reduce vehicle fuel consumption.

The first brand to use iridium in spark plugs and was able to make this product the highest quality was NGK. By the way, our resource has already written about these candles - you can find out more about the brand’s products in this article. So why did the world's manufacturers decide to use iridium? This metal is characterized by the highest melting point, in this regard it even surpasses platinum. In addition, it is characterized by good anti-corrosion characteristics and overall high quality.

Comparison of iridium and conventional SZ

Manufacturer NGK was able to keep the thickness of the electrode to a minimum, and its tip was made of iridium. If we talk about hardness, then this metal also occupies one of the first places in this regard. According to scientists, the metal is based on material from a meteorite that collided with our planet tens of millions of years ago. It is this material that makes iridium so hard. Another important advantage of iridium is its ability to withstand high temperatures. Even if you want to melt metal, you can only do it at a temperature of 2.5 thousand degrees Celsius.

Among other things, iridium has been used in global industry for more than a hundred years. However, in this case it is not used in its pure form, but as a special alloy. In its pure form, iridium, oddly enough, is quite fragile - pure metal is useless for production. Therefore, exclusively alloys are used for the manufacture of SZ.

Basic properties

The first property to consider is laser welding. It is thanks to this that iridium SZ are characterized by high conductivity. Due to the fact that the conductivity of the candles is quite high, manufacturers can and do make the tips as thin as possible. These tips are significantly thinner than traditional platinum or SZ devices made of metal. It should be noted that this property does not in any way affect the service life of iridium spark plugs - it remains the highest.

Iridium SZ in an enlarged view

One of the main advantages of a thin electrode is that it can concentrate the device's charge into a minimal area. In turn, this property makes it possible to increase the efficiency of spark production. As a result, the fuel will burn completely, and the engine power, one way or another, will be increased, accordingly, the power unit functions smoothly and without failures. Among other things, fixing the distance between the electrodes allows you to minimize the likelihood of a bad spark and problems with starting the engine, which is typical for low-quality SZ.

In addition to the main properties that we have already reported, it should be noted:

1. Sufficiently high strength of tips made of special metal.
2. A stable spark to ignite the combustible mixture and start the engine. The stability of the spark is evident under any conditions of use of the vehicle, as well as at any time of the year - even in the heat, even in severe frost.
3. Quite a long service life of iridium spark plugs, as well as high reliability. This is guaranteed by the rather high, as we said earlier, melting point of the metal, which is 2.5 thousand degrees. Thanks to this property, many modern power units are equipped with iridium SZ.
4. Since the thickness of the electrode tip itself is minimal, even a minimum voltage is enough to get a good spark (the author of the video is Nikolai Prokhorov).

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

I made a small sign and wrote down all the positive and negative points on it.

I would like to say a few words about cleaning such elements, there is a huge amount of information on the Internet that says you can’t clean them AT ALL! And even if you put in bad gasoline and the spark plug becomes covered with a coating (say, red from additives) or carbon deposits, then you need to install new ones. But friends, this is essentially nonsense. They are easy to clean, but you don’t need to do it with sandpaper (this will remove the working layer), just soak them in cleaning liquids (ordinary kitchen detergents will do) and then clean everything with a soft brush (an old toothbrush is ideal). And they are working again.

What advantages are we talking about?

Manufacturers claim, and their words are confirmed by the results of bench tests conducted by practitioners, the following advantages of iridium spark plugs:

• Improved cold start. Thanks to the central electrode being almost twice as thin, the sparking voltage required is much lower. This ensures the formation of a high-quality, powerful spark, which is especially important under operating conditions in the northern regions of the country, where morning temperatures drop to -40°C and below. When starting under such conditions, it is important to ignite the air-fuel mixture in the first seconds, before the spark plugs are filled - iridium spark plugs do an excellent job of this task.
• Stable engine operation at idle speed. When the engine is running at idle speed, better ignition of the lean air-fuel mixture is ensured, which solves the problem of “floating” speed, which often occurs when using conventional spark plugs.
• Increased engine efficiency. According to some experimental data, the use of iridium spark plugs can increase engine performance by 5-10%.
• Reduced fuel consumption. An increase in engine efficiency in approximately the same proportion leads to a decrease in fuel consumption, which is natural.
• Reducing exhaust toxicity. As mentioned above, iridium spark plugs allow you to get a more powerful and high-quality ignition spark in all engine operating modes. In this case, more efficient ignition and combustion of the air-fuel mixture occurs. As a result, the content of toxic substances and CO2 in vehicle exhaust gases is reduced.
• Increased resource. Since the central electrode of the spark plug is made of iridium, the rate of burnout of the electrode during operation is extremely slow. With proper operation, absence of mechanical damage and using high-quality fuel, the service life of an iridium spark plug can be 100-120 thousand kilometers . Manufacturers, as a rule, claim an even longer service life, but Russian practitioners recommend replacing them no later than 100-120 thousand kilometers. This is undoubtedly an excellent indicator, since the resource of ordinary spark plugs, for example, is only 20 thousand kilometers.
• Economic feasibility in some cases. On some V-engine models, access to the spark plugs can be extremely difficult. In fact, carrying out such a simple procedure as replacing spark plugs is impossible without visiting a service station, and this is an additional expense, often quite high. Installing candles with an increased resource is an excellent solution to this problem.

Along with the obvious advantages of iridium spark plugs in a number of performance characteristics, they also have disadvantages, the list of which, however, is significantly smaller.

Fly in the ointment: disadvantages of iridium

Alas, man has not yet invented anything ideal. This also applies to iridium spark plugs - while providing a number of serious advantages that cannot be ignored, they also have their drawbacks.

1. The first is obvious: the small diameter of the electrodes indicates their low strength. If a regular spark plug survives a fall or rough installation without any problems (at worst, you can bend the side electrode to the required gap), then for an iridium spark plug this will be the last episode of its working life. The Denso company itself, when releasing iridium Long Life spark plugs to the market, even included exact compliance with the tightening torque in the list of requirements.
2. The second “bottleneck” of iridium spark plugs is their sensitivity to the quality of gasoline: surrogate fuel is contraindicated for them. Alas, the smaller the probable area of ​​the sparking source, the faster the carbon deposits will damage the spark plug, and mechanical cleaning is excluded by the previous item on the list. Speaking of carbon formation, you should not stop only at low-quality fuel - the cause may be engine malfunction and problems with the power system: oil leakage through the crankcase ventilation or wear of the piston rings, failure of the lambda probe, leading to over-enrichment of the mixture. Iridium spark plugs are good for a serviceable engine running on good fuel, and nothing else. In such conditions, they outlive the engine - it is the problems with it that force them to replace the kit installed at the factory. When selling cars in Russia, it has become normal practice among automakers to reduce service mileage, citing more stringent operating conditions and low fuel quality. Sometimes it got to the point of ridiculousness - a number of reinsurance dealers demanded that iridium spark plugs be replaced every 30 thousand kilometers, although it is unlikely that any of the car owners began to experience ignition problems by this mileage.
3. The third disadvantage is the price. Although it pays off with a multiple increase in service life and even a tangible increase in efficiency, all these savings can easily be wiped out by one visit to a random gas station. If only iridium spark plugs are produced for a car (alas, now there are such standard sizes), then there will still be no options, but if iridium spark plugs were installed independently in order to improve engine performance or increase replacement intervals... Well, then a set of old spark plugs from the trunk will save you .

Not on all engines, replacing conventional spark plugs with iridium ones will provide a noticeable improvement in engine performance - the less optimized the fuel combustion process itself is, the less noticeable the “correct” spark will be. First of all, this applies to old engines, “stretched” by new injection systems to Euro-4 standards - a banal flashing will improve their performance, and not the purchase of iridium spark plugs. Their installation can be considered really necessary only when the engine is boosted - then their positive sides will be fully revealed.

Platinum or iridium – which is better?

When choosing spark plugs, you should focus on the performance indicators of the parts - heat rating, physical characteristics, etc. Particular attention should be paid to selection based on the heat rating. An insufficient value will deteriorate the quality of the supplied air-fuel mixture, and overheating will lead to detonation and complete destruction of the engine.

In second place in importance are physical dimensions. The spark plugs must fit organically into the space allocated for them, otherwise the chain will be broken and the car will either not start, or another problem will occur.

Engine manufacturers rarely recommend using standard copper or nichrome spark plugs due to their short service life and rapid carbon deposits. And the main candle makers rely on the more expensive but reliable platinum and iridium.

If you, dear readers, are not convinced by the editors’ arguments, we will confirm it with official statistics. The service life of one nickel spark plug does not exceed 40 thousand kilometers on roads of normal quality. But in the CIS, this figure must be divided by at least two due to the almost complete absence of asphalt on the road network. Temperature changes also contribute. Platinum with iridium has a 2-fold increase in service life, and they are also more protected from the influence of weather and mechanical factors.

Iridium SZ from NGK