Troubleshooting an ignition coil problem
Troubleshooting an ignition coil problem became my top priority recently. It fell into my lap out of the blue. My wife came back from the store all shook up. She said that the car suddenly started shaking, rattling and had no power. According to her it barely made it home.
Brain exercise
I love this kind of problem. It gives my brain some exercise. So mentally I started eliminating systems. The first thing was the fuel. I eliminated this because the tank had been full for some time. We had used over half the tank with no problems. Also, it couldn’t be a fuel filter problem as the problem came on way to fast for it to be a filter problem. It also couldn’t be a timing belt problem because this is an interference engine and it would have torn itself up if the belt had failed.
Speed is the big clue
The speed at which the problem showed up was the big clue. It came on suddenly and that usually points to a failure in an electrical component. They either work or they don’t. So the only thing left that could make the engine run rough was the ignition coils. Since this car has one coil for each cylinder a single coil failure could cause the engine to run rough. The computer on the car can tell me which coil has gone bad.
Read the code
Now to check the code I was going to need a code reader. The code would be in the computer. The computer would point to the ignition coil that had stopped working. I crossed the street to talk to my neighbor. He works on cars and I thought that he may have a code reader that I could plug into the car to get the code. He didn’t have one.
I get lucky and find an alternative method
Maybe the parts houses may have a code reader I could rent. I was thinking along those lines when I got the idea that there may be an alternative method to troubleshooting this problem. So off to Youtube.com I went. There I found my alternative troubleshooting method. I found that I didn’t need a code reader, I could determine which ignition coil had gone bad just using my body. I found this video and it is truly a gem. You can troubleshoot for a bad coil just by paying attention to how bad the engine runs by dropping out(unplugging each coil) each cylinder and using touch to determine if the roughness level has changed or not.
No tools needed
Below is the video. No tools are needed. But safety awareness is definitely needed.
Conclusion
This method will work for any vehicle that has individual coils provided you can reach the electrical connectors. If you decide you want to do this I would advise you to do a practice run with the engine not running. See if you can reach each electrical plug. Pull the connectors off as if you are actually doing the test(I found several connectors that did not want to release the first time I tried to release them). That way you will know what to expect when you are doing it for real.
When you do the test you want to do this to a cold engine so heat doesn’t become a problem. You want to make sure that you are aware of where you are placing your hands at all times. The engine will be running and the belts and pulleys will be turning. The cooling fans can also start up without warning.
Did this method work? Absolutely this method works. My number three cylinder coil had failed. I have a new ignition coil installed and the engine is purring once again.
(Mybusyretiredlife.com All Rights Reserved)
(Mybusyretiredlife.com All Rights Reserved)
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