Hey Guys,

Plan to replace the spark plugs, distributor cap and rotor in the near future.

Looking at Carparts.com - they list several standard as well as platinum plugs for this model car.

I live in Houston- hot, humid environment most of the time. Mainly city type driving.

I do not mind spending a little more for platinum plug - But ONLY IF they offer an improvemnt in performance over the stock plugs.

Carparts.com sell Bosh, NGK, Champion, Beck/Arnley and ND.

BTW- Carparts.com ,which was endorsed I believe on volvospeed.com) has a pretty neat site and queries up all the part for a particular model car- I have not yet ordered anything from them.

Several prior postings seem to indicate no advantage to going to the platinum plugs.

I would appreciate some usefull discussion on this subject.

As always - Thanks !!

Never mail ordered spark plugs before, but that should be one thing carparts.com shouldn't screw up. But then again they have screwed up every time I ordered from them. I haven't messed with them in the last 6 months or so maybe the have improved.

I use NGK. Bottom line. I've messed with other plugs, but I come back to NGK and find them flawless. They don't hype - they just work.

AND don't let the low cost fool you. They use quality materials and control their processes.

Nathan, if you're hoping for any sort of consensus, forget it. If it's not obvious from the few posts already, if you get 7 replies, you'll get 7 completely different opinions :-) You'll have to weigh each on its own merits and pick.

I went with John O's advice a month ago, $40 for a set at Barrier Volvo in Washington state, US. I went with the safest, but most expensive route, *because* of the lack of consensus.

go a.c. delco ive got a 1994 850 turbo sport wagon 108,000 milez and ive used nothing but a.c. delco and now i'm pushin about 310hp and i live in Chicago and our summers get really hot up to 115 degree's 100% humidity sometimes

The best plugs for your Volvo are those found at your dealers parts department, OEM. The OEM plugs for a turbo 850 ARE Platinum, cost about $35 and will last you at least 30K miles of troublefree driving, which is all you can expect from any spark plug.

Don't believe the hype where some of the other brands claim that you'll get faster starts, better mileage and more power, it's just NOT possible as it's ONLY a spark plug, not magic.

If you think of the engineering that went into your engine and fuel system, why would you think that Volvo would chose to skimp on bad spark plugs?

Cant comment on the parts, but I can comment on Carparts.com. I ordered 6 air filters for my truck from them. I got 4 air filters, and 2 oil filters. The oil filters werent even for my vehicle. After several emails, and a couple weeks waiting, I got 4 more air filters. Not bad, and they told me to keep the oil filters (which I had no use for, but hey..). Anyway, 4 months later they send me an email telling me that they still havent gotten back the oil filters. I forwarded them back their email telling me to keep them, and I havent heard from them since. So overall I got more than I wanted, but for a lot of hassle for something so simple. And for something as cheap and readily available as spark plugs, I would stay local.

I have read many many times that copper is the only way to go with turbos. I tend to believe it 'cause I had a Mazda that I swear I could tell the difference between the platinum and copper.

Hope it helps..........