How to Replace Spark Plugs 2000-12 Subaru Outback

Hi, folks. We've got these NGK spark plugs. You can buy them at 1AAuto.com. We're going to put a fresh set into our 2008 Outback with a single overhead cam 25 in it, so if you need tune up parts or any other parts for your vehicle, visit 1AAuto.com.

We've been selling parts for over 30 years. You'll get the best service on the internet, and fast and free shipping. Open the hood. Go under here, release lever. There's a little indicator, a little pictograph of a car. Release lever for the hood is here. Lift up on the hood, find the safety. It's right here about the grill, so push it to the passenger side, and just put the prop right up. You put your hood in the service position by lifting it up, and if you follow down here, you put the prop rod in this extra little hole here on the hood. Let that sit there, and now your hood is opened higher and you've got some more space to work.

If you're working on your Subaru here, the coil pack is right here with the plug wires running off of it. These two wires run down to the passenger side. There's cylinder number three and number one, and you can follow them down to the cylinder head, and that's where you'll find your spark plugs. If you follow the other two wires across, these are cylinder four and two. Again, those will go down into the cylinder head. We'll start here on the driver's side in the rear cylinder. This will be cylinder number four.

I'm just going to reach down. You don't want to pull the plug boot out by the wire. It's got these nice little rubber tabs here, you can grab onto it and pull it out. It might have a little bit of a suction to them. You've got to give it a good tug. Work it around a little bit. Lift it up. You want to do these one at a time so you don't mix them up. Lift this up here, put it aside. I'm going to use this 5/8 spark plug socket. This is special because it does have a rubber insert that holds the spark plug so when I take it out, it doesn't fall on me. 5/8 fits these, and I've got a combination of extensions. You're just going to have to find the right combination that fits in there.

Now, I can take this little extension off and maneuver it into place, and then I can stick this little shorter extension on here. We'll push it over the spark plug, so I can feel it's on there. Take the ratchet. It's pretty tight in here. Might have to work at it a little bit. It should come pretty easily. It shouldn't be torqued in here too terribly tight.

Start to loosen it up with the ratchet, and when you feel it get loose enough, you can reach in here with your fingers, take it out the rest of the way. I'm going to take this little short extension out so I can get it off. Just slide it out of here. So you can see that socket holds the spark plug in place. Just take it out.

Here we've got our old spark plug we pulled from our vehicle. See it does have some wear in it, a little bit of oil. That's pretty normal. The car probably does need valve cover gaskets, but I'm not going to worry too much about that right now. Here's our brand new one from 1AAuto.com. You can see if you match these up, they're the same length so they'll fit in the cylinder correctly, and the same type of crush gasket here. The original was NGK, the new ones are NGK's, so these will bolt right in and work great for you.

We'll put our new spark plug into the socket. It holds it in place. Go down in here. These don't need to be gapped. They're pre-gapped. Carefully slide it into the cylinder head. Make sure you thread it down in by hand. I need that little extra extension. You don't want to cross thread these, so make sure you feel them go in nicely. I like to thread them all the way down ‘til I can't thread them anymore with my hand, and then I'll tighten them.

The torque on these is 15 foot-pounds. You just need to crush the little sealing gasket that's on the end of them. If you can't get a torque wrench in here, you probably can't, it's pretty tight, so let me just get the ratchet in here to line up. I'm going to thread it down, and when I feel it get tight, I'll go about a half turn more, and that should be enough to seat that gasket. You don't want to over-tighten these. You don't need to kill them when you're putting them in. That's tight, and then I'll just go a little bit more, right there.

You can reinstall the plug wire and boot. At this point, if you want to change these, you can do that. Additionally, if you want to add a little bit of dielectric grease here and on the end, feel free. We're just going to install them as is. These ones are in pretty good shape. Feed that into the opening. It should seat itself right on the spark plug, just make sure it pushes down. It'll kind of snap into place, and it goes back into this little carrier here, and we'll do the front cylinder.

This one here, we'll do the same exact as the rear one, and we'll just start by pulling off the boot.

To get to the spark plugs on this side, the passenger side, so we're going to remove the air box to give us access. We'll start over here at the intake duct. This has some push clips here, so I'll use a push clip tool to pry them out. Just pop them up. Do the same for both, and this will pull right out and lift up. Put that aside.

We've got to loosen this hose clamp. You're going to need to use a flat bladed screw driver or I'm going to use an 8 millimeter socket. I think using the socket ratchet is easier, but if you don't have access to it, just use a flat bladed screw driver. Loosen it up, slide it off, and unplug the mass air flow meter here. Push in the lock, pull it out. You might have to hold onto the box. You don't need to remove it from this air box. You can just unplug it.

So there's a stud with a nut here holding in the air box. I'm going to loosen that up with a ratcheting wrench that's a 10 millimeter. If it's loose enough, I'll take it off with my fingers, if I can get my fingers in here. It's still kind of tight. It's a little bit rusty, so I'll keep taking it off. I'll try not to drop it. Put that aside so we don't lose it.

There's a 10 millimeter bolt down here. I'm going to use a 10 millimeter socket and a long extension. I'm just going to take it all the way out, make it a little bit easier. Pull the air box up and out. It sometimes might be... This one wasn't clipped, but it should be clipped on this power steering line here. If it is, just pop it out. Maneuver it out of the engine compartment. Try not to pull any hoses out with it.

We'll start on this rear cylinder here. Reach down, this will be just like the driver's side. Pull on these rubber flaps. You don't want to pull on the spark plug wire. Just kind of work the boot out. Put this aside, and just move this connector out of the way.

We'll put our spark plug socket and extension down into the opening. This wire is in the way. Just kind of maneuver it in there. I'll get the other little extension. Just use a combination of extensions that works for you. Make sure it's seated on the spark plug. It feels like it is. Use a ratchet to remove it. Slide it out of there. It's getting tight, we'll go just a little bit more to seat the gasket. You're all set.

Reinstall the spark plug boot. Make sure it's seated, and we'll move onto the next one. You do the same for the front cylinder. Reinstall the boot and the wire.

We'll reinstall the air box. I'm just going to feed it back into the fender well here. You have to maneuver it around some hoses and wires. Make sure we don't break this air flow sensor wire. Put that stud in the opening there. Make sure you don't lose your hose clamp here. Make sure you put the bolt part where you can reach it, so usually like that. Align this up here. Push it over. This will help you get it in place. This power steering line clips into this hook right here. Put this bolt down into here. Tighten it up. Once I feel it get tight, stop.

I'll reinstall this nut here. A little tricky because my hand wants to push the air box away as I'm trying to thread it on. Let's get it started. Just thread it on as far as it will go, and then I'll use my ratcheting wrench to finish it up. I'll just get it tight, just snug it up. You don't have to over-tighten it. Once you feel it get tight, you can stop.

Then, we'll find our mass air flow meter plug. It's very important you don't forget to plug this back in. It'll click when it locks in place. Tighten up our hose clamp. Once you feel it get tight, stop.

These little push clips, they've got a little rubber grommet on them. I'm just going to take it off. Just simply slide it off, and I'll push it back in where it originally went. This will make it easier to reinstall with these already in here. You've got to push them in place. Do the same for the other one. This part will fit into the air box. We'll slide it in. Line it up on the radiator support. Put the push clips in. The job is complete.

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