Pandora's box...opening. Ruthenium vs Iridium? (1 Viewer)

[MrTorgue]

I'm getting ready to drop some coin on a bunch of maintenance items for both the 470 and 460. For my 460 it's getting new plugs. While hunting for non-fake Denso SK20HR11's I stumbled upon NGK Ruthenium plugs. And having never heard of these so I thought I'd see if anyone here has any experience with these plugs? @mmaguy posted about using them but nothing else was said. The internets is light on seemingly reliable information so I turn here. I'm all for paying a higher $$ premium if they do have any legit benefit like longer lasting and or better engine ignition/response.

 

[jmanscotch]

I’ve had nothing but good experiences with various NGK plugs, but haven’t heard of this new hotness.

That said, I’m old school with plugs: put some quality iridium Densos or NGKs in and call it a day. They work well with Toyota engines, are reliable and do what you need them to. I personally wouldn’t worry about spark plug details unless it was for a true high performance engine platform.

Fun fact, on my Tacoma, I found Toyota put Denso plugs on one engine bank and NGKs on the other, from the factory. Thought it quite a peculiar thing to do.

Best price I’ve seen, from dealerships, is about $8 a plug. About twice what they should go for, but not as horrible as I’ve seen before.

 

[MrTorgue]

I might email NGK and ask...

 

[BigSwede]

Given that iridium plugs go over 100k miles easily, I'm not sure what benefit "longer lasting" would give.

 

[Bralow]

This is one of those times when it is better not to try to outsmart yourself.

I'm not hating on the question - it's fair, I just don't think you will succeed.

Personally, I think people hunting for performance improvement with sparkplugs is just a holdover from the old days when spark plugs were unreliable, unsophisticated, and "adjustable".

Several dozens of engineers at Toyota spent several thousands or tens of thousands of man hours and had NGK / Denso literally design them a spark plug specifically for this engine with this tune. Double so because this engine was in the flagship LC for many years. There is no scenario where randomly picking parts out of a catalog is going to improve upon that.

Also, the manual is pretty clear: "Use only iridium tipped spark plugs".

 

[MrTorgue]

This is one of those times when it is better not to try to outsmart yourself.

I'm not hating on the question - it's fair, I just don't think you will succeed.

Personally, I think people hunting for performance improvement with sparkplugs is just a holdover from the old days when spark plugs were unreliable, unsophisticated, and "adjustable".

Several dozens of engineers at Toyota spent several thousands or tens of thousands of man hours and had NGK / Denso literally design them a spark plug specifically for this engine with this tune. Double so because this engine was in the flagship LC for many years. There is no scenario where randomly picking parts out of a catalog is going to improve upon that.

Also, the manual is pretty clear: "Use only iridium tipped spark plugs".

Not looking for performance, was looking for; what these ruthenium plugs are and b) if the longevity is any longer or c) better ignition/throttle response. I'm not a noob and not trying to "outsmart myself". Sometimes, people like to learn new things and I'm a sponge.

Given that iridium plugs go over 100k miles easily, I'm not sure what benefit "longer lasting" would give.

That was one of my thoughts. NGK got back to me saying these ruthenium plugs wouldn't give the GX460 any benefit over iridium. So there's that. Hopefully this topic will help the next person searching the forum for "ruthenium".