spark plug boots and electrical tape?

[BadAss95-530i]

I had my coils out to do a compression test and noticed several other problems. Im doing my valve covers this week now (a fair amount of oil).

Upon cleaning up the boots, i noticed the PO's bad electrical tape job had become quite brittle and hideous looking. With the state of the electrical tape, I assumed the boots must be absolute shite so i baught new boots. But when i stripped the bad tape off, i saw the boots looked pretty damn good. Almost new even. Quite soft, ply-able, same strong black and no cracking. two of them had a slight dryish brown tinge on the front, but overall very good.

Is there any reason why someone would electrical tape a boot that was fine? Does it provide any advantage or protection? (aka, should i tape the new ones?)

I posted a pic. the left is the new boot. The middle is the way 6 of them look now. The right is one of the two with the brown stuff (back of the engine #4 and #8 that had the most oil around em)

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm42/bigbisont/plugs.jpg

[Dave M]

Is there any reason why someone would electrical tape a boot that was fine?

Why???

It says electrical tape right on it

Its like windex, a little squirt can't hurt

He liked the way it looked in the shade

It was the only way he could hide the extra tape from his wife

Sorry, its late..................and I have no clue why someone wouuld do this,

Dave

[Qube]

Lazy. Saw it patched on an Accord or was it a Civic before... arc'd like crazy even with the tape, and he wondered why it ran like ****.

[ryan roopnarine]

diagnostic purposes, probably. especially if they look new. that way, you don't have to wonder if a coil is going flaky when troubleshooting something else.