I do most of the maintenance on my vehicles. A few months ago I decided to replace the spark plugs in my Silverado that had 88,000 miles on it at the time. Plugs are good for 100,000 but the weather was nice and I did them early.
I went online and found new plugs on Amazon (bad choice). They sold for $31.99, not bad price and free shipping.
Last week while killing time on YouTube I came across a video about counterfeit spark plugs. The plugs I had bought from Amazon fit all the criteria that I had bought counterfeit.
I ordered a new set of 8 from Rock Auto, $53 with tax and shipping. When I took out the set I installed 5 months and 7,000 miles they had burnt the electrodes down to nothing.
I look at this as a lesson on buying anything off Amazon. I read reviews which were very good at the time; now the seller is gone off Amazon. I have had to return counterfeit guitar strings in the past to them. Mad at Amazon, but also mad at myself for not being more vigilant.

Did you buy them "from" Amazon or from an Amazon seller?

Either way I would bring it to Amazon's attention as they tend to offer pretty good customer service especially if you can prove they you were scammed.

I was just reading yesterday about counterfeit NGK’s being sold on amazon. I may have a set installed on my parents’ Honda. I’m going to pull one tomorrow before Christmas dinner to check. Obviously won’t know until then. At least on their CRV you can literally do a plug swap in less than 20 minutes,

I'm guessing it was an Amazon seller.
Acdelco 41-110 OEM Gm 12621258 Professional Iridium Spark Plug - Set of 8
Sold by: SHARONDA COLEMAN
Return window closed on Mar 20, 2019
$30.99

I bought them in March and installed them in early June. When I try to "Buy Them Again", a blank page comes up and the vendor isn't listed anymore. From the time I bought them until now it is passed the return window. New plugs run better and I no longer have the rough idle I had before.

quote:

Originally posted by PowerSurge:
I was just reading yesterday about counterfeit NGK’s being sold on amazon. I may have a set installed on my parents’ Honda. I’m going to pull one tomorrow before Christmas dinner to check. Obviously won’t know until then. At least on their CRV you can literally do a plug swap in less than 20 minutes,

I checked the set of NGK's I installed on my sons Civic and they were good.

I just checked my account. Theirs are still for sale and for almost the same price as a set of 4 from Oreilly. Hopefully they’re real. If not I’ll get a set from Oreilly’s.

Been there, done that.

I stick to factory parts whenever I can.

A set of 68304022AA plugs are kinda spendy.

Some day I'll get around to swapping the wires.

Yeah, ya gots to be careful buying certain things on Amazon. Counterfeiting is a serious problem, there, and scumbags will counterfeit some of what we might regard as the most unlikely of things, such as spark plugs.

Sorry you got cheated.

Sharonda? Red flag right there.

Its gonna happen mre and more. People dont buy local enough and eventually Amazon will be your only choice!!!!

rtquig, I'd talk to Amazon CS. They are very good about being fair and honest and they may overlook the return date. It's worth a try.

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo54:
rtquig, I'd talk to Amazon CS. They are very good about being fair and honest and they may overlook the return date. It's worth a try.

Jim

I'll give it a try.

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin101:
Its gonna happen mre and more. People dont buy local enough and eventually Amazon will be your only choice!!!!

Amen! People will sell their sole to save 30 cents and it ends up costing them $30 in the long run.

quote:

Originally posted by Lt CHEG:

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin101:
Its gonna happen mre and more. People dont buy local enough and eventually Amazon will be your only choice!!!!

Amen! People will sell their sole to save 30 cents and it ends up costing them $30 in the long run.

Hey man, my shoes aren’t for sale.

I would never have imagined counterfeit spark plugs of all things...….what do they take the cheapest junk spark plugs from China and hand paint the logo and plug number on them?

From my days in GM parts departments this is nothing new. Used to be fuel,transmission and oil filters, distributor caps and rotors, ignition modules, automatic transmission seal kits, bearings and bushings together with clutch plates and brake pads were commonly faked. I started in 1970, it was probably going on before then.

There were a lot of scammers out there that would take advantage of small dealerships.These guys worked out of "boiler rooms" offering "great" prices on "overruns of genuine parts" and then as a incentive offer a "gift" sent directly to the parts manager's home as a "thank you" for buying these bargain parts.

Well, the "gift" was sent, the "great deal parts" were sent to the dealership. Parts manager or whoever ordered them would find out that they were bogus and when they would attempt to return them their "buddy" at the boiler room would refuse to take them back. Parts manager would start to raise a stink and "buddy" would counter with "How's your dealer going to act when he finds out we sent you a TV (or whatever) directly to your home? We do have a signature where you accepted it at proof you took it!" The hook was in the fish then.

I replaced a parts manager at one dealership that was terminated for this exact reason. For the first two years I was there these clowns would call up asking for James, the old manager. When I told them he was no longer there they would try to get me to bite. I never fell for that crap, no such thing as a free lunch.

Ain't just Amazon. Fakes are everywhere.

Hard to believe they can make any money counterfeiting sparkplugs?
When I see a price way low I always suspect something is wrong.
I try to stick with better known sites and buy from Amazon not the sellers if possible.
Definitely a concern.

There is just no way I would buy spark plugs on Amazon. Sounds about as good as drinking Mexican tap water.

One word of advice. If you go to an D-I-Y store like AutoZone, O'Reilly's, etc. open the box and check to make sure that someone has not "pretested" the part beforehand. The staff doesn't always check this before it is put back on the shelf.

I bought a set of AC spark plugs for my 428 Pontiac. While I liked AC's in my GM cars and trucks they had a propensity for many years of the center electrode offset from the center of the shell. Saw a lot of that over the years, to some not a big deal but me I always felt otherwise.

So upon opening the individual boxes in the overpack seven of the eight were carboned, oily on the shell and with witness marks on the flats. Imagine If I had taken them home and opened them to find that. My chances of making that right and exchanging them for another unused set would probably have been nil.