I did my first tune-up on our moderately recently acquired 850, and found rust at the bottom of the two leftmost spark plug wells, looking at them from the driver's seat - more at the extreme left (No. 5, I guess, because it's at what they consider the rear of the motor), a little bit at No. 4, none in the other three.

No sign of any spark plug firing problems on those plugs; in fact, they came out more easily than those closer to the front (the right) of the motor.

Is this a sign of something awful, or only of water from the world (as opposed to the motor) that got into the car?

Bill:

This can also happen if you have washed the engine bay in the past and forgot to blow out the water that gets logged in the spark plug wells.

yt855

It's just from condensation, not the engine. My wells, 2 and 3, look terrible but I am not going to clean them. I don't want the dirt/calcium to fall down to the plug and eventually the piston when I change plugs.

Klaus
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(V♂LV♂s 1975 164, 1995 854T, 1998 V70R)

My guess would be water from the world and not from the motor. Clean it up, put a little antiseize on the plugs and move on.

Mark