OT: Sticker shock.... spark plugs?!
 

Went to grab a set of four spark plugs for a friend at my local Advanced... cashier said $65!!!

Apparently spark plugs have easily doubled in price over the last decade... unreal!

They were for an old 2003 Toyota Corolla with a lotta miles and a blown head gasket. Was getting a misfire on cylinder 1 but I figure spark plugs are cheap, why not replace the whole set?

..i left with only one spark plug

Anyone experience this craziness with anything else?

Inflation and profiteering are real. Hard to tell which one is happening for most things though. Wages are not really keeping pace. It’s tough out there for most folks.

I'm guessing they are iridium plugs, and are meant to last 100k+ miles.

Iridiums have always been that expensive.

Check out Rock Auto: https://www.rockauto.com/ I just replaced mine. Dealer wanted $40 for one. Same OEM specified plug was $9 at Rock Auto.

That's a fact ^. Be glad you don't have to buy eight at a time.

Just bought two Screaming Eagle plugs for my Harley. $35. Replace every other year so I can live with that. Every Harley has gone way up. HD stands for hundreds of dollars.

Way back machine, think they were like 1.50 each

BITD, NGK B-7E plugs for my motorcycles were .99.

Rock auto has been my go to for all my vehicles.

Another plug for Rock Auto. (pun intended)
They are the first place I look for parts.

I think this is just the air cooled motor stressing plugs.

My Hondas had iridium plugs with long change intervals like a car. But 4 of them so they would have been expensive and the labor to get to them was horrible.

Harley = more frequent maintenance but surprisingly decent parts prices. Japanese = reliability and maintenance like a Camry with Ferrari performance but absolute sticker shock on parts and a pain to get to anything.

We got our first vehicle with iridium plugs some time ago. GM thought it was reasonable that you had to rotate the engine to change the plugs because they only design cars to last 30000 miles.

on edit: I just gave a set for that vehicle to someone. No wonder they were happy to get them.

A set of nice NGK plugs for my VW was 35 bucks I think. I replaced them at 65k. The previous ones looked great and could have gone a lot longer but that's the rec. interval. I needed to do the PCV as preventative at that point anway and swapping it requires removing most of the coils so worth it to do both at once.

The $975 bill for replacing the oil pan on that car however... That was a shock.

Store was taking advantage of you. A big chain auto store like that for a super common economy car should have been offering you a range of plugs; from basic to best. Quick google search shows you should still be able to get a plug for that car in the 3.xx range easily.

I don't buy anything from the chain auto supply stores unless it's an emergency.