[John V.]

Just thought I'd share this.

Have had the car since new 9 years ago, now 85K miles, figured it was time. 3.8L supercharged motor. Knew the rear plugs would be a hassle and I'm not getting any younger.

Picked up Autolite Double Platinum Plugs. Trick was to pull the boots off along with the Heat Shields.

Read online about it and saw many posts saying that it was guaranteed that OEM wires were sure to break pulling them off.

Got #5 off by hand, but then stalled. Bought a set of long offset needle nose pliers at Pep Boys, managed to use them along with a long screwdriver, grabbed the metal heat shield and used the screwdriver to pry against the pliers, and with a LOT of effort popped all the boots off.

So far so good. I was feeling pretty sure that I had not damaged the wires.

The plugs unscrewed surprisingly easy. #2 (passenger side rear) was tight to get to and blind. Not much room for a socket and ratchet, but it came free once I managed to get the tool on it.

New plugs went in easy by hand, and after snugging them with the ratchet that part was done.

Next I popped the boots back on. The rears I worked kinda blind, but in the end, pretty sure I had them all seated.

Got in, fired it up, and the engine idled very rough. Something obviously wrong. Had a lunch date at that point, so had to leave.

Came back, hoping it had fixed itself. Rechecked the boots, they seemed tight, and pushing on them with engine idling didn't seem to make a difference. After a few restarts, the Check Engine light lit. By now and remembering the suggestion that the wires were sure to break when pulling them off, I figured that must be the problem.

At this point, I drove it to AutoZone to check the code. I was sure I must have damaged a plug wire or two while pulling them off, so was prepared to buy a wire set though I really didn't want to do that job.

Code was a general misfire, not specific to a cylinder. Bought the wires.

Got home, laid the wires out and started to plan out the order of replacement. Studied the wire routing, especially to the rear. The OEM wires are all conveniently numbered, the replacements are not, so I wanted to be sure I wouldn't cross anything up as I swapped the wires.

It was at this point that my brain finally engaged. You probably guessed it by now.

As I'm tracing the routing of wire #s 2 & 4, I see what I did, crossed them up. I had tried to be so careful keeping the boots in the right position as I had removed them, I never checked the nos. on the wires as I reattached them. Somehow, I got those 2 reversed.

And since this had never happened to me before, it never dawned on me that the very rough idle could be a result of crossed wires. Even when I first saw it, I thought, now why would they number the cylinders 4, 2, 6 across the back??!! Then it finally hit me. I felt like a pretty dumb rookie.

All's well that ends well I guess. Corrected the wires and it ran smooth as ever. Took the new wires back to AutoZone for a refund.

Oh, and I did manage to break the plastic end of the oil dipstick while prying a boot off. So will need to buy a new dipstick at the dealer. Plus my arms are scraped and bruised. But man, doing it yourself is so satisfying!