From a professional stand point I see nothing wrong with these plugs. Just worn out. Put the new ones in and drive that bitch.

What are you looking at on the wire? Thats not carbon thats just some grease they put in the plugs at the factory. The discoloration on the porcelin is just dirt. And platinum and iridum plugs all look like the ones you took out of the car. Your replacing with just plain old regular plugs.

You will be fine with the regular plugs. Platinum and iridum plugs make absolutly NO horsepower differance. They just last longer than the regular ones and cost twice as much.