After I graduated college in the early 90's I bought a new Ford Ranger 4 cyl pickup for my vehicle and to move from Madison, WI to Massachusetts for my first post college job. I did all the routine preventive maintenance on it. While doing an oil change I figured why not change the plugs too. It's a simple thing to do (at least on previous cars I had) so I bought 4 spark plugs along with the oil and the filter.
After starting the simple process of changing out the plugs I learned some unanticipated things. The 4 cylinder engine has 8 plugs! WTF? I learned later that this is done to get a little extra power and a cleaner burn. One fires near the intake and one fires milliseconds later near the exhaust to try to ensure all fuel is consumed and leftover vapors don't push out with the exhaust (cleaner emissions).
The other thing I learned is you have to be a contortionist in order to get at the plugs for the cylinder in back by the firewall and you are guaranteed to lose all the skin and any blood going to your knuckles.
Other than that, I loved that little truck. I didn't have any problems with it. I traded it in when I upgraded to buy a larger new Chevy pickup. That was a bad choice. I have not and will not buy any GM product again. That thing cost me so much time and money to fix issue after issue, recall after recall. I swear it was built on a Monday after SuperBowl Sunday by a team of hungover workers in the slums of Detroit.
