I'm about to inherit my wife's 2007 Rav4 Limited V6 with 178,000 miles on the odometer. I plan to drive this car for another 2-3 years (hopefully) and want to do some "tune up" work to get it driving smoothly again.
We've been pretty diligent in the maintenance of the vehicle, but I just realized the other night that we never had the spark plugs changed. Some recent issues with starting the vehicle, a rougher sounding engine noise and significantly reduced fuel economy have me thinking the spark plugs and/or ignition coils could be part of the problem. The mechanic that just replaced the alternator at $750 didn't think to ask about any of these items.
If a plug or coil were bad and causing a cylinder to misfire, wouldn't this trigger the check engine light to come on? The only time we've noticed the CEL is when we're due for an oil change. I plan to go ahead and change all 6 spark plugs due to the mileage, but I'm wondering if it's worth the expense to replace at 6 coils while I'm doing the plugs.
We've been pretty diligent in the maintenance of the vehicle, but I just realized the other night that we never had the spark plugs changed. Some recent issues with starting the vehicle, a rougher sounding engine noise and significantly reduced fuel economy have me thinking the spark plugs and/or ignition coils could be part of the problem. The mechanic that just replaced the alternator at $750 didn't think to ask about any of these items.
If a plug or coil were bad and causing a cylinder to misfire, wouldn't this trigger the check engine light to come on? The only time we've noticed the CEL is when we're due for an oil change. I plan to go ahead and change all 6 spark plugs due to the mileage, but I'm wondering if it's worth the expense to replace at 6 coils while I'm doing the plugs.