2001 Saturn L300 : How to change spark plugs
 

I own a 2001 Saturn L300 V6 3L with 165k miles on it. The spark plugs have NEVER been changed and my vehicles is "starting" to misfire (or at least now I notice the increased fuel consumption/lack of power.)

I wanted to check the link you had but the link is bad. Is it possible you could send another link or help me out?

Sorry if this is necroposting, I haven't checked the dates yet.

ALL HELP APPRECIATED :)

2001 Saturn L300 : How to change spark plugs
 

Hello everyone!

I am very new to this website, but I understand that some of the people that comment here are very knowledgeable about their cars. With that said, I am having issues with cylinders misfiring, causing reduced performance as well as higher fuel consumption. My car's SES light is on but I do not have the equipment nor the funds to check the codes.

With all that out of the way, the car is an L300 V6 3.0L Engine. I have looked everywhere online and I can't find any good information on how proceed with removing the spark plugs.

I already have good information as to what plugs to use but I am open to any suggestions, but mostly I'm just looking for detailed information on how to change the plugs and bonus points for any pictures or videos :)

All help is greatly appreciated, help make a new member's experience a good one :):)

Take the car to any auto parts store and they will read the codes for FREE as it's been stated on this forum a 1000 times. Once you get the codes come back and post them. Post the CODES not someone's interpretation of what's wrong.

You might try looking on youtube. All kinds of great information can be found there.

I appreciate the swift replies from both of you. I guess I'll have to take it into a local Napa auto place and see if they'll check out the codes for me.

As for you tube, well I've checked just about every video involving my car to no avail but its worth quadruple checking I guess :)

I should be back with a post on or before the weekend with my codes thanks again.

I'm pretty sure you have to remove the intake manifold in order to change the plugs on that one. Sounds like a project to me.

Your plug change should be similar to Vue. Here ya go. It's not very detailed, but you should get the idea that it's going to take you several hours. Some engineer needs a good ass kicking for this design, for sure!

Thank the good Lord that I never opted for any of the V-6 options for my Saturns ...

Rubehayseed thank you so much for your fast and very courteous responses. Watching that video has made it seem like its going to be a major pain in the butt to do the work but I'm ready and willing.

I still intend to get the codes checked out and post them on here so I can get the SES light sorted and I hope you can assist me again in the future with any posts I have. Cheers!

Good luck with it, man. Let us know how you do. I'm currently looking at a few used Saturns for my son and daughter to share if they land jobs. I'm sure as hell not going to be looking at any V-6 equipped ones! Not after seeing that. I prefer the SOHC 1.9, but will actually take a DOHC 1.0 before a V-6.

Just finished changing plugs and thermostat in my L300. Not an after work task. More like a weekend, or every night afterwork task. The clamps are a little tricky if you want to reuse them. Mostly, the issue is how much you have to remove to get to everything. If you have never changed the plugs, you may want to coxider changing the thermostat since you ate halfway to it anyway.
I love my V6, when I dont have to work on it. The L300 is fast, holds a family of 5, and gets 30mpg on the road. Great car!
Good luck.

I really don't like that Opel setup, never did amd would have never bought one. Just like the Astra GM shoved down the throats of Saturn stores. Not worth a **** in my book.

For every one thing, you have to remove 3 to 5 others
 

I am currently suffering the same frustration of having to remove up to six things for every little thing you want to fix or replace, such as spark plugs.

I decided to replace the clamps with traditional hose clamps. The intake runners are not going to looks as neat, especially that I am replacing only those clamps that I had to remove.

I think the thermostat is the worst. It must have been designed by someone inspired by big law firm mentality of how they can get as many billable hours out of anything. The amount of time it'll take to remove all in the way will dwarf the amount of time it takes to actually work on the thermostat and its housing. I'm still debating whether I should replace it preemptively as I have a lot of things off already as I am doing a 100K service, or I should draw the line and deal with the thermostat when it fails.

You've already got all the crap out of the way to get to it. If it were me, I'd put a new one in it and not worry about it for another 100,000 miles or so. Why wait for it to fail?

Thermostat, oh thermostat, they really couldn't have put you in a worse location
 

Well, I'm leaning towards it, but first I need to put the front of the engine back together (at this point there is no time pressure, so I'm taking my time). Until I put the right engine mount back in and the engine comes off the engine support bar, I cannot start on the thermostat since one bolt that holds the coolant pipe is the same one holding the engine lift loop, which is currently busy.

At least, on the L300 the intake manifold is a three-piece design. I had to take the two intake runners off to get to the spark plugs. The center piece that is on top of the thermostat is still on. Compared to the one-piece design shown in the video on page one of this thread, the three-piece one may be a little bothersome with the clamps, but overall I think it is easier than suspending that one big piece off the hood.

All I know is that if I go to purchase another Saturn, it won't be one with the V-6. Too much of a pain to work on. I'll stay with the four bangers, thank you very much.

Spark Plug Access on L300 V6's
 

I am not familiar with all model years of the L300 V6 by any means. On the 2004 V6, the intake manifold is a three part design compared with the the Vue V6 depicted in the video in this thread. So, one does not need to remove the entire intake manifold. Rather, there are two intake runners that need to be removed to be able to remove the coil packs and then the plugs. This is easy and quick on bank two (cylinders 2, 4, and 6), and it is easy and involved on bake one as there are a bunch of things mounted on the intake runners on that bank; still, not difficult just lengthy (compared to how long it should take you to access the plugs.

I am posting this reply, considering the original date of the original post in the thread, because someone might be researching this (like I was six weeks ago) right now.

Thank you for taking the time to do so

Completely different set up on the vue, l300 is a littler
 

Moot point, man. This thread is between 3 and 4 years old now.