Those 100,000 Mile Spark Plugs

Ahhhhhh Yes!!! We've come a long way. Now we don't have to change spark plugs for 100,000 miles. The problem is what to do when you come to change them. The word on the Internet is that spark plugs that are in a car that long, particular on a particular year F150 Ford Truck can be practically impossible to remove and in order to do so, you have to take the motor apart and the cost of changing your plugs can be around $2,000.

Well, my daughter just happens to have one of those particular trucks and upon hearing this news became quite depressed about the whole thing, and rightly so. She found this out on the weekend, which did not brighten her days at all.

It just so happens that she bought her truck from Clint Paquin, down at Paquin Ford in St. Albans and Clint is one of these salesmen that doesn't sell you a car and that is the end of his job. He always follows through, so I decided I would call him. Now Clint is the type of salesman that does not try to avoid you if you have a problem. He even gave me his cell phone number so I could call him if I needed to, so even though I have not purchased a car from Clint since 2004, I called him on his cell phone and sure enough he was there to answer.

I explained my daughter's plight to him and he said he had to admit he had never heard of that problem, but he was home changing and getting ready to go in to work and would see the boys in the shop when he got in. Well, apparently he didn't wait until he got in to work as within 15 minutes I got a call from the maintenance supervisor at Paquins and he told me that Ford Motor Company had provided them with special tools to remove the spark plugs without breaking them in the head. He told me that it could take between 1/2 hour to 2 1/2 hours depending on how difficult it was to remove them.

This is some different that the $2,000 cost of taking the motor apart to remove them.

I would be very remiss if I did not mention the fact that I have been dealing with Clint Paquin since 1965, so we know each other pretty well. I also have to mention that over the course of those years, I have purchased 3 cars elsewhere and when I ran into problems with service took those same cars up to Paquins and they serviced them for me. One of these cars wasn't even a Ford or Chrysler, it was a Cadillac. It made no difference to them, I still got the same service and consideration.

A special thanks to Clint for his follow through on this - Remember when you buy a car, your salesman's job doesn't end with his handing over the keys to your new vehicle - The job goes on and Clint is an excellent example of that.