Hi,

The car in question is a Skoda Fabia 1.2 (Sport)

I'm putting everything down here as some of you may spot something in what I'm saying to help.

About 2 months back I had an Ignition Coil failure, had the coil replaced. The garage advised me I should have the other coil packs changed which I did last Friday as part of my MOT. I picked the car up from garage and drove home (distance of about 3 miles, maybe a little more).

Friday evening, drove the car about 5 miles, engine management light came on and car seemed to stumble. Pulled over, left engine run, the rev counter was bobbing between 700 and 1100 rpm. Out of gear, revved the engine, the counter tried to go up, but kept bobbing up and down between 1000 and 2500. My foot was to the floor, the revs just weren't catching. Turned engine off and restarted, the engine management light went off, and drove the car about 2 more miles same thing happened again, restarted, light didn't go off tis time, and drove the car home. Felt like i had less power but got there and the revs seemed to move through the gear changes ok.

Took car back to garage Sat morning, but they couldn't look at it till Monday, left it with them. To be fair I have found the garage quite good in the past so do trust them.

Monday had a call, advising all OK, checked all coils and connections again, took car for 6 mile run, they said all ok, I picked the car up and drove car back home, no issues. They advised the car had a misfire (cylinder 3).

Tuesday morning, drove car to work, after about 14 miles, car did it again. Car stumbled. The car was does not bunny hop or do anything violent at all. Restarted and light went off, drove car rest of way to work, about 5 miles. Drove home that evening, car did it again, about 12 or 13 miles into the journey. Repeated the restart and drove rest of way home, about 5 or 6 miles.

Called garage and logged all this, car went back in Thursday. Before that used a mates computer to check codes, code came out as P0303. (cylinder 3 misfire).

Garage spent all day Friday working on this, they were able to repeat the problem. The went through all contacts, checked all coils, plugs everything and said that everything is now pointing at the cars ECU.

I have a feeling that I couldn't just simply swap out the ECU; everything programmed and coded like key and immobilizer etc?

Does anyone have any advice?

A couple of people have mentioned to me the Fuel Filter, which I mentioned to the garage when dropping car in Thursday. Another one that has been advised to me is temp sensor causing ecu to throw?

When the car stumbles its as if the fuel fuel has been cut, which is probably true as garage told me fuel is topped going to cylinder 3 and car goes into "limp home/safemode" mode.

I would appreciate any advise you guys can give. What do you think I can do about the ECU?

I have maintained the car has felt a littl;e sluggish for the past coupld of months since I had the first coil changed - the car still gets to 70 but feels like it should get there quicker, that's just me perhaps? My MPG seems to have gone up since I have had that done.

Thanks

T

Are the ht leads alright?

Mines had a little nick in one and the car ran terrible

Also the car was fine before they done the work so id be looking at what they have changed... Possible wrong / faulty part!

Have you tried moving the coil pack from cylinder 3 to one of the others and see if the misfire follows the coil pack?

Are the coil packs genuine Skoda parts?

Have had a few problems with the cylinder heads on the 1.2's, giving low compression, i would definetely get a comp check done if still says no3 missfire.

Hi,

Thanks for all the advice.

AFter thinking about this over the weekend and going through what has been changed in the last two months (3 ignition coils and brake pads) I asked the garage to take the car again, take out the ignition packs which I discovered were third party parts and put in genuine skoda/vm ones and the car is running amazingly now. No signs of sluggishness or anything. Took the car for a 60 mile round trip after picking it up and it's brilliant - back to the way it was when I first picked her up.

Anyway, resolution was genuine parts.

I didn't have the ecu tested either.

great news good to hear it's all sorted now

Also a good reason to use only OEM parts.