Hitchcocks Forum

Evening all, the other day after starting my 2002 500 Bullet, I went off down the road and it cut out after about half a mile [if that] from home. I couldn’t get it going again, so pushed it back home which was not too bad until I reached the hill where I live! A few days later I tried to start it up and with some difficulty after a while, it fired then it ran for about 30 seconds before cutting out again. I checked the spark plug and found it seemed to be sparking ok. Tonight, I just thought I’d change the plug and to my delight it fired up ok and seems to be normal.
Now, I’ve had the bike since 2002 and this is the second sparking plug which has failed on me. I’ve owned cars for over 30 years and have never had spark plugs fail on me before at all with cars. So, I’m wondering if Bullets are particularly good at destroying spark plugs, given the considerable vibration they suffer. Has anyone had similar reports here, I'd be interested to know? Thanks.
REgards, DerekC.

Two pugs in twelve years?, don't complain, some on here use two in a week it would seem.

Oops 14 years.

There have been a spare plugs with our bikes for many years, all unused.

An Iridium plug should last you 100 years.

Forty years ago and more, spark plug and points cleaning was almost a weekly chore. Cars and bikes. Plugs were changed on annual service, now we leave them in forever. Looking at a well used plug I found from that period, the electrode had thinned right down from spark erosion, they don't do that now. Fuel has also changed, we don't get the same level of crud build up destroying the plug.

I bought a Triumph T90 26 years ago which I still have it is used regularly, this bike still has the Champion plugs fitted which were in when I bought it, it's been run on leaded, unleaded and ethanol added petrol without any problem.

New plugs every year, cleaned weekly?, never.

"spark plug and points cleaning was almost a weekly chore"
Not in my garage it wasn't (except the two-strokes)

My 2008 350 Bullet is still on it's original plug at 20,000 miles(ish). Always run on cheapest supermarket fuel.

To put that into some perspective, 26 years ago was 1990, 40 plus years ago it was the 1970's, and 2008 is only 8 years ago. Back then we lads were running cars and bikes that were either already 10-20 years old or newer japanese bikes. By the late 80's things had improved a lot, the Volvo 245 which I kept for the longest ever dialled up around 400,000 miles, and that ran on full-synth oil from new which was not available earlier. materials improved a lot from the 60s to the 90s.

Well Jefrs, when I started motorcycling the only things I could afford where pre WW2 and were well worn (actually WW2 war dept. usually)
I still didn't have to play about with the plug and points every week.