This week I installed a $57 E-bay snorkel, which was actually more challenging than I had thought it would be. I took zero photos of the process. I also finally received my coil packs this morning.
I realize there's no definitive right or wrong answer, but I'm just wondering what people think about a minor coil pack dilemma I'm having.
Back story: 2000 LX470 now with ~184000 miles, purchased a few years ago despite dodgy service records, some cringe inducing body damage, and a vanillaroma air polluter adding to the overall gestalt of trashy prior owners. It actually had a vehicle bra when I bought it (this I tore off in contempt within the hour of purchase in a grocery store parking lot. This was the cheapest and best upgrade I've done, as I couldn't drive it home like that without smoldering in shame). I know better than to buy a vehicle with virtually every red flag box ticked, but it was cheap, not intended as a daily driver, and I figured what the heck (forgive me, but I'm like this--I pick the apples with bruises at the store and if I were to go to the humane society I'd likely return home with a tremulous dog dying of consumption). I don't gush over large passenger vehicles, preferring cheap, small cars, but I have a soft spot for the 100-series after getting Falciparum malaria in Africa in 2001. I was being taken for medical attention in one by an extremely pleasant U.S. Peace Corps driver at breakneck speed when we hit a goat, at which point I realized I was riding in the nicest vehicle I'd been in, ever. I remember thinking, "Wow, this thing is smooth. I barely felt that goat at all." We didn't stop, FYI.
The Vanillaroma Project began running rough almost immediately, but limped home with the check engine light flashing. My scanner offered up three cylinder misfire codes (I don't recall which three). I replaced all the spark plugs, horrified to find that they didn't even match, and the three coil packs on those cylinders. Soon after I did the 90,000 mile interval service (which by the look of the cracks in the timing belt may have been the first time it was done), and managed to grenade the front differential when I got hung up on stump hidden in the snow less than a minute after saying to my long-suffering wife, "these things can go practically anywhere. Watch this." While that was out, I tore out the AHC system, put in the harshest suspension available, regeared to 4.88 and added air lockers (I recommend all these upgrades, by the way. Even with hard springs while totally empty the ride is fantastic. Anyone who says otherwise needs to toughen up). I've done virtually all of the big and small projects, and estimate I've wrenched on it maybe an hour for every mile I've spent behind the wheel. It has morphed from a hideous hot box on wheels, mistreated by strippers and scumbags who likely never drove it sober, to a scarred and hungry trail monster (that previously mentioned tacky body damage now looks like something a boulder elicited because I was too cheap to put on rock sliders, not like damage done by an opiate addict in the Wal-Mart parking lot). This is mildly amusing to people who know me. I never really drive off road, preferring to go over mountains on foot.
I digress. Anyway, the other day it began running rough again, my scanner verifying my suspicion. This time it was cylinder #7. The old coil pack was aged and cracked. I popped in a cheap-o coil pack I bought some time ago on Amazon as a spare (this is the only thing those are good for, in my opinion), and then ordered 5 Densos, figuring it's long past due to simply replace the 4 old ones and the cheap knock off as those are not trustworthy (I live in rural nowhere, so getting parts takes time--this is actually my backup vehicle). My question is this: wait for the old coil packs to die, or replace them and keep the not-terrible ones as spares?
I already know the answer, but sometimes you just want to tell the story.