2015 Coils and Sparks

[Bill Bulloch]

Just got my 3rd expedition, 2015 EL Limited. Had it about 2 weeks and love it so far. Still own a 2000 Eddie Bauer we bought new and my 16 yr old daughter drives it every day (the same car that brought her home from the hospital when she was born).

On this 2015 EL Limited, when we bought it the dealer (BMW) said the only thing that it may need was new coils and sparks and said they'd do that work for $450. I've had this kind of work done on my previous expeditions and that sounds like a deal to me. The car is running fine currently. Should I go ahead and let the BMW dealer do that work to lock in that deal, or is that not really a deal for me?

 

[Langer]

Plugs and coils aren’t too tough to change. There’s a couple recent posts here about people doing them, I believe there’s even video tutorials linked in the thread. For a couple hours of work, at worst, you could save the cash.

 

[07navi]

I would do it myself, they would be making about $500 an hour. You can still "lock in the deal", don't let them get over on you.

 

[gregcm21]

I just replaced my spark plugs last week. Took me less than 1.5hrs from start to finish. The coils can be easily replaced. If your handy with working on cars...then this should be a gimme. If not, assuming that includes the plugs and the coils...seems like a deal to me. I bought the plugs off Rockauto and found a coupon for 10%...shipped to my house was $60. I'd be surprised you'd need 6 new coils. The coils are $35-75 on Rockauto.

https://www.expeditionforum.com/threads/2017-spark-plug-change.44249/

 

[07navi]

My coils were still good when I sold the truck at 2ook miles.

 

[Trainmaster]

No need to change the coils. Not a service item. If there's no miss, it doesn't need plugs.

If you change the plugs and still have a miss, then find the offending coil and change that one. The plugs can be changed in a hour, and should be changed about every 80K miles. No big deal.

If you are buying a car that has a miss or rough idle, you shouldn't be buying it as it may have a much bigger problem.

Sounds like the dealer's just trying to pad his sales price.

 

[Plati]

Not everyone can or wants to do work like replacing spark plugs.
like ME at my advanced age

You don't say how many miles on it or anything about maintenance history or problems.
That would factor in. I would not want to run plugs more than 75K but thats just me.

$450 sounds like a BMW dealer price (too high).
** until I checked the price of COPs **

Most people say only replace COPs if an issue. If 80K or more I would do plugs but find a good local honest shop not a Dealer, or wrench yourself if you enjoy that.

This gets into the whole issue/question of what maintenance or when to do with a used vehicle. Maybe plugs were just replaced. BMW dealer can't really know that. My advice is follow scheduled maintenance (or more frequent), but with a used vehicle --- you're blind. If it's a 2015 ... educated guess would be NOTHING done.

 

[Goofy173]

Seems high on price, but dealers are usually quite a bit more expensive, and not worth the extra cost. I bought my own cheap plugs and coils for my 2000 E150 5.4 and my mechanic charged me $150 install. I think I had less than $125 in parts. It took me 4 hours to do it years ago, when I was younger, lol. They are ridiculously hard to replace in a van.

 

[Plati]

Seems high on price, but dealers are usually quite a bit more expensive, and not worth the extra cost. I bought my own cheap plugs and coils for my 2000 E150 5.4 and my mechanic charged me $150 install. I think I had less than $125 in parts. It took me 4 hours to do it years ago, when I was younger, lol. They are ridiculously hard to replace in a van.

I thought that was expensive also UNTIL I looked up Ford OEM ignition coil at Advance Auto is $79 apiece. So 8 of those COPs would cost me $684 in NYS, YIKES !!!

and I would not go cheap COP route

Does this mean the BMW Dealer in OP is putting in cheap parts?
So when you get a quote, do you have to specify parts to be used?

 

[Jim R]

How much should a standard repair shop charge parts and labor to replace all plugs and coil packs for a 2015 3.5 Liter V6 Turbo?

 

[07navi]

How much should a standard repair shop charge parts and labor to replace all plugs and coil packs for a 2015 3.5 Liter V6 Turbo?

Too much, do it yourself.