Occasionally especially after a very damp night my car has a real paddy when I fire it up. It coughs splutters and shakes so much you can hear the exhaust clattering against the bottom of the car :eek:

Now my mechanic said "can you replace just the caps or do you have to replace the whole coil pack" to which I just shrugged Now by caps he means the contact point between plug and lead in case it goes by a different name.

Is it possible for these to be replaced independantly of the coil packs? If not would a conductive grease on the top of the plugs help provide a more moisture resistant contact?

Thanks in advance.

The coil packs have rubber seals to prevent moisture getting to the plug. They are covered by an engine covere. That is covered by the bonnet. The packs are troublesome and have had revisions. From £18 each.

If talking about the single coil pack/leads, put a fresh set of leads on first (they corrode where they go into the coil pack, so make sure that is dealt with and the coil pack cleaned down well).

If you give full vehicle details and a fault scan printout further help can be made.

Greg.

Get a fault code scan, if it indicates coil pack problems/misfires on certain cylinders replace those. Otherwise you'll have to guess!

They are cheap now, from

Occasionally especially after a very damp night my car has a real paddy when I fire it up. It coughs splutters and shakes so much you can hear the exhaust clattering against the bottom of the car :eek:

Now my mechanic said "can you replace just the caps or do you have to replace the whole coil pack" to which I just shrugged Now by caps he means the contact point between plug and lead in case it goes by a different name.

Is it possible for these to be replaced independantly of the coil packs? If not would a conductive grease on the top of the plugs help provide a more moisture resistant contact?

Thanks in advance.

i would simply spray each one up in turn with cold start, not WD etc to narrow it down

Thanks for the advice. Didn't realise the leads unplugged from the pack

No fault codes when I last checked about a week ago.

If its the vRS you are talking about then they have a coil pack per cylinder and they are a sef contained unit. the wiring loom plugs onto the coil pack and that plugs onto the sparkplug.

Still haven't had a chance to sort this.

Should I try a blob of dielectric grease on the top of the plugs? Is this something I should have done anyway when swapping the plugs in the spring?

Mine did the same. I changed the plugs and you can see from the state of the plug you took out what was wrong. cylinder 1&2 were fine 3 was worn more than 1&2 but not to bad. 4's was scorched and was causing the misfire I think.. I reckon that the last owner never changed the plugs or maybe never changed the awkward (cylinder 4) one under the black thingy that bolts on with a 10mm bolt and some hex bolts on a clamp. Each coil pack is about £20 and a set of plugs Bosch 509's which are £19 odd or Genuine long life set is £36

Personally I would start with sparkplugs usually if coilpack fails it fails with eng, lite illuminating or blinking..

Personally I would start with sparkplugs usually if coilpack fails it fails with eng, lite illuminating or blinking..

This is what I said - start with the cheapest option and look at the spark plugs even before you go and buy some parts

Thanks, will whip the plugs out over the weekend. They've only got 11k on them and should be good for 40k but worth a look still. Infact I'll do it first thing in the morning then I might spot any moisture that has crept its way in.

I would suggest checking that all the coil packs are sitting right. I had a hesitation problem and after investigation I found every coil pack had popped up. After pushing them back in it was fine for a day then returned. Checked again and 1 coil pack had lifted again. Turned out the plug on the offending coil pack was loose causing gasses to blast the coil pack up. Checked and torqued correctly all the plugs and replaced all my coils for the bolt down "E" version type and have not had a problem since.

You could always try swapping coil packs round when you get VAGCOM`d as the fault will move with the coilpacks

A little detection work could save you some money

Here is a guide to changing the coil packs:

http://briskoda.net/technical-guides/pictorial-guide-changing-coil-pack-1-8t-engine/76367/