Yes, it does concern my tribulations with my Laguna :-[
I've been scraping my cents together for replacing an engine dephaser and the car finally conked out on Monday afternoon, on a bend in a very busy road near my house, before I could have this part replaced.
Eventually, I got the car home and not immediately suspecting the wonky dephaser which caused the engine to sound like a diesel, I did a bit of diagnostics yesterday to find out if the conking-out trouble was caused by ignition or fuel starvation.
After cranking the engine a few times, I wanted to look at the plugs to check their condition.
Each sparkplug has its own coil and the coils are fastened in each plug well with a single torx screw. I have the appropriate tool but try as I might, I could not undo any of the 4 torx screws as they were hopelessly overtightened.
Today, I had some help and a bloke with Renault software and laptop arrived and he also wanted to have a look at the sparkplugs and also struggled to remove those coil holder screws.
Finally, we got the coils off and removed the sparkplugs and I have never seen anything remotely like the plugs removed from my car. They were pitch black on their business ends and pitch black on the top contacts as well.
I didn't immediately look at the BRAND of sparkplugs taken out today but thought all afternoon about the difficulties caused by the overtightened coil screws, until...about an hour ago when I looked at them again and realised they were branded RENAULT
The last person who fitted new sparkplugs was me, doing this about a year ago and I certainly would not have been crazy enough to overtighten each of the coil contraptions above each plug.
At the time when I bought and fitted new plugs from Tonnesen, Lansdowne Rd, I bought a set of NGK's of the correct type which were the same as those I took from the engine a year ago.
The only other times my car was worked on by someone else (not today's mech), had nothing to do with sparkplugs. During the past year, the other guy replaced a burned out climate control fan and on the second occasion, he had to replace a leaking fuel hose.
So how come ancient and very dirty Renault-brand plugs came from my car??
How is it possible that this gawe, "christelike" omie that I have known for 40 years stole the set of NGK's from my car's engine?? Who steals sparkplugs out of engines?? What kind of person is this?? The bloke's workshop is nearby and he works on cars with only one decent-looking helper.
Anyway, as is my habit, I replace things on my cars at regular intervals and almost never throw things out. I found the 4 NGK's I took out a year ago, still in their NGK boxes in which the new replacement NGK's were in.
The mystery of the overtightened coil things is solved but the discovery of such a lowlife sparkplug thief really rattles me. As mentioned, I've known him for almost 40 years as he used to run the Main Road garage where I always fill up with petrol. Some years ago, he sold the filling station and started working from home.
And I'm still "in" for R5.5K which is the replacement cost of a new camshaft dephaser :'(
mafioso
I've been scraping my cents together for replacing an engine dephaser and the car finally conked out on Monday afternoon, on a bend in a very busy road near my house, before I could have this part replaced.
Eventually, I got the car home and not immediately suspecting the wonky dephaser which caused the engine to sound like a diesel, I did a bit of diagnostics yesterday to find out if the conking-out trouble was caused by ignition or fuel starvation.
After cranking the engine a few times, I wanted to look at the plugs to check their condition.
Each sparkplug has its own coil and the coils are fastened in each plug well with a single torx screw. I have the appropriate tool but try as I might, I could not undo any of the 4 torx screws as they were hopelessly overtightened.
Today, I had some help and a bloke with Renault software and laptop arrived and he also wanted to have a look at the sparkplugs and also struggled to remove those coil holder screws.
Finally, we got the coils off and removed the sparkplugs and I have never seen anything remotely like the plugs removed from my car. They were pitch black on their business ends and pitch black on the top contacts as well.
I didn't immediately look at the BRAND of sparkplugs taken out today but thought all afternoon about the difficulties caused by the overtightened coil screws, until...about an hour ago when I looked at them again and realised they were branded RENAULT
The last person who fitted new sparkplugs was me, doing this about a year ago and I certainly would not have been crazy enough to overtighten each of the coil contraptions above each plug.
At the time when I bought and fitted new plugs from Tonnesen, Lansdowne Rd, I bought a set of NGK's of the correct type which were the same as those I took from the engine a year ago.
The only other times my car was worked on by someone else (not today's mech), had nothing to do with sparkplugs. During the past year, the other guy replaced a burned out climate control fan and on the second occasion, he had to replace a leaking fuel hose.
So how come ancient and very dirty Renault-brand plugs came from my car??
How is it possible that this gawe, "christelike" omie that I have known for 40 years stole the set of NGK's from my car's engine?? Who steals sparkplugs out of engines?? What kind of person is this?? The bloke's workshop is nearby and he works on cars with only one decent-looking helper.
Anyway, as is my habit, I replace things on my cars at regular intervals and almost never throw things out. I found the 4 NGK's I took out a year ago, still in their NGK boxes in which the new replacement NGK's were in.
The mystery of the overtightened coil things is solved but the discovery of such a lowlife sparkplug thief really rattles me. As mentioned, I've known him for almost 40 years as he used to run the Main Road garage where I always fill up with petrol. Some years ago, he sold the filling station and started working from home.
And I'm still "in" for R5.5K which is the replacement cost of a new camshaft dephaser :'(
mafioso
