A press release came out today from Plustar talking about how using their plugs will improve fuel economy AND power. They point to a test they did comparing oem and Plustar plugs in a 2005 Prius. Anyone try them?? Read the story here...2005 Toyota Prius
Their data is missing some information. How many dyno runs did they perform for both plugs? Did they take an average, or just the worst/best numbers? Since a lot of factors could impact the results, the numbers alone, aren't significant enough to conclude actual improvement.
I saw the press release too. It looks intriguing. BUT... At $25 a piece I don't know if it is worth $100 for a 3-5% increase in efficiency. I have a buddy that I tease all the time about his GMC Tahoe. He said $200.00 for plugs that get him as much as a 20% increase would pay for themselves in the first month.
This is probably just another ripoff---like the "splitfire" sparkplugs once advertised to increase power & economy, etc, etc. If these sparkplugs were really superior, Toyota (and every other manufacturer) would be installing them in the new vehicles. Save your money.
Besides, our Prius OE plugs are Iridium made by DENSO (if memory serves right). The true benefit lies in their efficiency, durability, and improved firing power.
I want to say first that these plugs more than likely aren't worth $100 and may not be any better than the stock ones as far as FE goes. But, the argument that if something was better/superior then the manufacturers would be using them, is a poor argument at best. One example that comes to mind is exhaust headers; the are far superior to the stock cast iron manifolds for performance and efficiency. The fact is, it comes down to $$'s. It's cheaper for the car companies to use the cast iron manifolds and, they could probably make more money by selling headers as accessories. As stated above though, save your money. I am currently testing a set of Pulstars in my car. They were free as part of a testing program that they set up with CleanMPG.com. There are 5 people who are testing them in various vehicles. They wanted people who would test them properly and people who would be paying close attention to their vehicles and would know if they were making an improvement. Again, save your money and I'll keep everyone informed of my results. If they don't work, it won't cost us any money to find out.
I'm about to start testing a set, too, so I'll post a link to the review when it shows up at CleanMPG. I'm not expecting much but we will see when the data has been collected. Worse comes to worse, Mr. Pulse Plug and Mr. Dremel will get together and we'll see what the deal really is.
