I removed and inspected one of the front spark plugs on my '92 SSE */c last night, and I was surprised to see that the porcelain around the cathode was no longer white but was a red color. A bit of the same color deposits were on the cathode also. The plug was dry and otherwise normal, but because I've NEVER seen red plug deposits before, I removed the other 2 front plugs to look at them too, and they looked exactly the same.

I initially thought there must be an odd problem with the engine, but I just poked around on the web and found http://www.autolite.com/pdf/PlugTips.pdf that says that a red coloring is normal and is due to unleaded gas additives. So I learned something today, and I thought maybe other members in this group would be interested to learn this too.

I wonder if maybe California'* gas additives are unique? Regardless, the additives must have changed recently, because I've never seen that color on a spark plug before.

It'* fine. It is from gas additives.