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How Many Spark Plugs Does My V6 Engine Have?

If your engine isn’t running as well as it used to it may be time to replace your spark plugs in your engine. But how many spark plugs are in a V6 engine? The answer is it depends on who manufactured your vehicle’s engine.

Most V6 engines will use 6 spark plugs or one spark plug per cylinder. However, there are some engines from specific vehicle manufacturers like Mercedes Benz and Alfa Romeo that have produced engines that use 2 spark plugs per cylinder for a total of 12 spark plugs.

Because Mercedes Benz is an engine supplier for other vehicle manufacturers there are also other vehicle manufacturers that also will have engines that have two spark plugs per cylinder.

What Kind of V6 Engine Do You Have?

The majority of V6 engines on the road will only have one spark plug per cylinder for a total of 6 spark plugs. This would include V6 engines from the likes of Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Honda, Jeep, and Nissan. The two-vehicle manufacturers that experimented with two spark plugs per cylinder are Mercedes Benz and Alfa Romeo.

Because Mercedes Benz and Chrysler were once in partnership Mercedes Benz actually supplied engines for Chrysler for a short period. Which means that you may also find dual spark technology in some Chrysler cars made in the 2000s. This includes the Chrysler Crossfire and Chrysler Crossfire SRT-8. If your vehicle was made in the United States, South Korea, Mexico or Japan you likely will only have one spark plug per cylinder in your V6 engine. It’s really only the European vehicle manufacturers that have experimented with using two spark plugs per cylinder.

Is It a Dual Spark or Twin Spark Engine?

The only two vehicle manufacturers that use two spark plugs per cylinder in their engine design is Mercedes Benz and Alfa Romeo. If your car was not made by either of those manufacturers you likely don’t have a twin spark engine.

The vast majority of V6 engines will only come with one spark plugs per cylinder which means the engine would use 6 spark plugs. Alfa Romeo did not make a V6 twin spark engine so if you have a V6 Alfa Romeo they would use 6 spark plugs.

I’ve included a table below of various vehicles from different manufacturers and how many spark plugs each specific vehicle would use.

Vehicle	Number of Spark Plugs
2016 V6 Ford Mustang	6
2016 V6 Honda Accord	6
2004 Mercedes CLK 240	12
2004 Chrysler Crossfire	12
2007 V6 Toyota Camry	6
2015 V6 Ford F150	6
2010 V6 Chevy Camaro	6
2006 Mercedes S350	12
2019 V6 Jeep Grand Cherokee	6

Is Dual Spark Technology Better Than One Spark Plug?

Theoretically using two spark plugs should be better than using a single spark plug because two spark plugs are greater than one. However, in practice having two spark plugs in your cylinder would only help if one spark plug was not able to adequately burn off all of the fuel in the engine cylinder.

If two spark plugs per cylinder were necessary to help burn off all of the fuel in the cylinder then you would think that other vehicle manufacturers would also use that design but they have not. While twin spark plugs per cylinder may be somewhat beneficial it’s yet to be determined if it’s worth the extra cost of having to replace double the amount of spark plugs in your engine.

How to Check the Spark Plugs In A V6 Engine

Most V6 engines are going to be mounted in the engine bay with spark plugs on both the left and the right of the engine. This is referred to as a longitudinally mounted engine. That is why the engine is designated as a “V6”. The v refers to how the engine cylinders are banked on both sides of the engine to give the engine a V shape.

If your engine is mounted transversely then the spark plugs would be on the front and the back of the engine. Having the spark plugs on the back of your engine will make checking your spark plugs much more difficult to access in most vehicles. This is because usually there is not much room between your engine and the firewall of your engine bay.

With most engines nowadays engines will be designed to use either spark plug wires or coil packs to provide electrical energy to the spark plugs. Spark plug wires are the older of the two technologies. They both perform similarly there is just less to worry about with coil packs.

Once you have located your spark plugs on the side of your engine you can check them by using removing the spark plug wire from the spark plug or removing the coil pack depending on how your engine was designed.

From there you should be able to get access to the actual spark plug to be able to remove it. You can use a special spark plug tool to allow you to get a socket around the spark plug. This allows you to easily remove it from your engine cylinder. After you have the spark plug removed from your engine you will be able to inspect it.

If your spark plugs are black or coated with carbon you may want to look at replacing them. It’s normal for them to be somewhat black in color but they should not have any carbon buildup on them and there should be a small gap between the electrode and the tip of the spark plug.

Cost to Replace Spark Plugs in a V6

A typical spark plug will cost anywhere from $4-15 per spark plug. So if you own a standard V6 engine with 6 spark plugs you can expect to pay about 60 dollars to replace your spark plugs if you do it yourself.

One thing that you need to think of when purchasing new spark plugs is if you want to go with iridium or platinum spark plugs. Iridium spark plugs will last longer than platinum spark plugs but will be priced higher. If you are interested in learning more about iridium and platinum spark plugs and which ones you should buy check out my other article.

If you own a twin spark engine or a Mercedes engine with two spark plugs per cylinder you can expect that cost to double which would come out to about 120 dollars. Now you can see why having two spark plugs per cylinder can cost add up in maintenance costs.

These costs would be if you plan on replacing the spark plugs in your engine yourself. If you plan on having a mechanic replace your spark plugs on your V6 engine you can expect it to cost in the ballpark of 120-150 dollars depending on the labor costs of your mechanic.

I would suggest replacing your spark plugs yourself to save yourself some money. It’s not really that hard to do and with a V6 engine, you should have extra space in your engine bay to be able to reach all of the spark plugs as long as the spark plugs are on the left and the right of the engine.

If your spark plugs are on the backside of your engine next to the firewall then they may be tougher to reach.

How to Replace the Spark Plugs in a V6 Engine

First, you would want to locate the spark plugs on your engine. If you have an older engine you may see spark plug wires leading to the individual spark plugs in your engine. If you have a newer engine it likely will not have spark plug wires but will have coil packs that will be mounted to the top of your spark plugs.

Either way, you would want to work to remove either the spark plug wire or the coil pack from the top of your spark plug so that you can remove the spark plug from the engine. It’s a good idea to work on removing one spark plug at a time so that you don’t get your spark plug wires or coil packs mixed around.

With spark plug wires if you connect a spark plug wire to the wrong spark plug when reconnecting the wires this can cause the firing order of your engine to be in the wrong order which will cause your engine to run on less than 6 cylinders until the spark plug wire configuration is corrected.

Now that you have access to the spark plug you can begin to remove the spark plug using a special spark plug tool. This spark plug tool will insert into the spark plug hole where you can then unscrew the spark plug from the engine block.

After unscrewing the spark plug you can grab the spark plug using the spark plug tool that has a magnet on the end that can grab the metal ring of the spark plug to be able to pull the old spark plug out of the engine block.

With the old spark plug removed from the engine, you can now go ahead and insert the new spark plug into your engine block using the magnet on the spark plug tool to drop it into the engine slowly.

After you have the new spark plug inserted into the engine block you would want to tighten the spark plug using the spark plug tool. You do not want to tighten the spark plugs into the engine block with a lot of force you should only be tightening them using hand tools to a few feet pounds of torque.

You can look up how many specific foot-pounds you should be tightening them for your specific engine by looking them up online if you wanted to be certain that you weren’t over-tightening the spark plugs.

Then you would be able to use a torque wrench to tighten the spark plug to the specific torque specifications recommended by your vehicle manufacturer.

Once you have tightened the spark plug into the engine block you can go ahead and reconnect the spark plug wire or the coil pack to the spark plug. You would then want to replace the other 5 spark plugs using the same procedure.

V6 Spark Plug Wire Order

If you are planning on replacing your spark plug wires at the same time as replacing your spark plugs you would want to replace one spark plug wire at a time so that you don’t mix up your spark plug wires. If you do end up accidentally mixing up the order of your spark plugs you can look up a spark plug diagram for your vehicle online which would show you how the spark plug wires should be reconnected.

How Many Spark Plugs Are In A V6 Engine – Conclusion

The vast majority of V6 engines will only have one spark plug per cylinder which means that they should only have 6 spark plugs to replace. If you have a Mercedes or Alfa Romeo then you may actually have two spark plugs per cylinder.

And if you have a Mercedes or Alfa Romeo then you should look up your specific vehicle online to see if your engine in your car has two spark plugs per cylinder. If it does have two spark plugs per cylinder then you would need to buy 12 spark plugs to replace your old spark plugs.

How Many Spark Plugs Are In A V6 Engine?