So just how does a car spit out a spark plug? Part 1.

On Thursday while driving to work, my Neon, a 1997 SOHC ATX, ejected its #3 spark plug. This is the first time I have ever seen or heard of such a thing occurring. I purchased the Bosch Platinum plugs in April 2004, since then I have driven the car approximately 54 000Km. I managed to get the plug back into the cylinder head and "limped" the car home. On Friday I got a better look at the inside of the spark plug tube. There is almost no thread left on the cylinder head. Also the other three plugs where loose, I removed them and replaced them with an old set of Champion plugs. Now I'm faced with an interesting dilemma, what do I do next? Saturday morning I carefully drove the car to my preferred Dodge dealer where the service adviser informed me that they will either have to tare the engine apart to replace the cylinder head or possibly tap the hole and insert a heli-coil. The former expense as he put it” is thought the roof”. The later is somewhere in the range of about $120.00. The down side to all of this is that I finally paid off the car and it is now 8 years old with over 254 000Km on it.