kruegerk
Member
- Joined
- July 10, 2012
- Messages
- 14
- Reaction score
- 2
- City, State
- Portland, OR
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2004 Explorer
I feel a little silly for posting this setting myself up for ridicule but I made a discovery last night that I hope addresses my explorer's low fuel mileage. This is my wife's vehicle and I don't spend as much time with it as I do my powerstroke. I do the usual tune-up/maintenance and don't give it a lot more thought than that but have noticed the mileage at 10-11 even in the winter isn't what it should be. I pulled one of the spark plugs last night on a cylinder that I had seen an excessively worn plug in the past. I checked the gap and then compared with with the spec sticker under the hood and found my mistake. I misread the sticker in the past and assumed the .33-.42 was inches and had gapped the plugs at the more typical 0.035 range as I have with most cars in years past. Didn't realize this was actually mm and the plug needed to be almost twice what I've been running. I am going to assume that I haven't been getting good or even mediocre combustion with this narrow gap and would also explain the very rich exhaust smell. New plugs are getting gapped to spec tonight and hoping to see improvements soon. Any reason to unplug the battery and reset the computer with this significant change in spark plug gap.
