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Ready to spring for that almost 10-year-old Mercedes-Benz S600? Well, thanks to an anonymous Imgur poster, you might want to rethink that.
The Imgur user performed a routine service on his S600's twin-turbocharged V12 mill and started his thread with a simple picture of the new spark-plug boxes. The Jenga-esque stack shows that the V12 in that Mercedes-Benz uses two spark plugs for each cylinder -- this helps the engine more thoroughly ignite the mix of fuel and air inside the combustion chamber. While a single-spark-plug system would be fine for most engine designs, Merc needed to optimize its V12 for both power and emissions, and using two spark plugs per cylinder was a way to reach its goals.
The rub? Not only do you need to pay for 24 of Mercedes-Benz's finest spark plugs when your lustworthy S600 needs service, but you'll also have to carefully remove the ultra-expensive Merc V12 coil packs -- the units responsible for sending electricity to those brand-new spark plugs. A quick look at various Mercedes-Benz parts suppliers shows that these V12 coils can set you back over $1,000. Oh, don't forget -- in order to even reach those coil packs, you'll have to move the two top-mounted intercoolers out of the way.
After getting to the point where you can remove and replace the spark plugs, you'll be tasked with doing it 24 times, which means you'll get really good at changing plugs after you're done. Naturally, you could farm this out to a qualified mechanic, but where's the sport in that?