I've started a new thread as the old title was misleading. I'll start this one as if the other didn't exist and bring up to date in the hope someone might have some ideas.

Car is as in signature below. On starting the car from cold there is a definite misfire. The colder it is certainly the worse it is, but as the engine warms up we get to the point of there always being a slight misfire.

The RPM needle isn't jumping around, but you can feel the slight misfire.

This has been going on a while and felt like it had been getting worse. When driving I was feeling hesitation and worse misfire under acceleration.

 

No fault codes were being logged. The car went in for some diagnostics and the cylinder 2 misfire count was higher than it should be. Moving coilpacks and spark plugs did not change this - the fault didn't follow the coilpack or spark plug.

 

Over the weekend we went for a long drive to Folkestone, then to Calais and then back to Cambridgeshire. Once again on starting from cold there was a definite misfire. Under "hard" acceleration the car would feel extremely lumpy. If I backed off then it stopped, but applying acceleration and the same again.

At the same time the engine warning light and ECP lights would blink yellow for a while - maybe 10-15 seconds, before switching off.

If I gently accelerate this didn't happen. For the majority of the journey there and back we sat at an indicated 80mph and the car didn't feel like it was missing a beat, only when we accelerated to get past things and only when I did that with urgency rather than gentle pushing the accelerator. When the lumpy/misfire started, backing off stopped it.

 

On the way back things came to more or a head. We were zipping along at around 60mph as we were coming to the end of a long, curved slip-road. As I looked on to the motorway I wanted to accelerate at pace to get past a slow moving car in plenty of time before a lorry arrived. I pushed the accelerator quite hard and the engine felt extremely lumpy, extreme misfire and both the engine warning light and ECP lights came on, however we also got a message along the lines of "Engine Fault: Workshop" on the display in the middle of the maxidot. This time even when backing off from the accelerator the lump/massive misfire stayed. I pulled on to the hard shoulder, and killed the engine.

I waited for about 5 minutes before switching back on. We were back to where we were before, a slight misfire could be felt, but otherwise the car felt fine. I got up to speed on the hard shoulder, accelerating quite fast, but not with massive urgency and joined the motorway at about 60mph. I then proceed to accelerate back up to the indicated 80mph, and she felt smooth all the way back home - gentle acceleration, no urgency etc.

 

One night later, start the car up this morning and the same - slight misfire, slow acceleration all is well.

If I sit in the car and rev it, 3000, 4000 to the limiter it sounds absolutely fine. I can even do this by "plunging" my foot to the floor, instantly hitting the limiter. No massive misfire, no warning lights, it sounds fine. So I'm only experiencing these symptoms whilst driving.

 

Thanks for taking the time to have a read, I know this is now in essay form

I know I'll need to get this looked at, I also know I'll need to get it repaired. I'm just looking for pointers so I know what I'm looking at before this all gets sorted.

 

Ta

Sounds like the coilpacks.

Edited 5 December, 20169 yr by Ecomatt

Sounds like the coilpacks.

 

Except moving the coil packs didn't move the problem.

 

I would say (in no particular order)

 

Check the coil wiring to the number 2 coil pack

Fuelling to number 2 injector - injector leak test would be best

Compression test - will highlight any issues there

May be worth having the cam/crank sensors checked as well, they could be breaking down under load

Edited 5 December, 20169 yr by octyal

I've got the car booked in next Tuesday, query faulty injector on cylinder 2. Gentleman I spoke with today says he'll check all injectors whilst inlet manifold etc is off - if he feels any of the others could do with being replaced he'll let me know. He's quoted me around £95 per injector (parts) and then 2.5hrs of labour for the job.

Fingers crossed for a solution. At the moment there is always some roughness there and I cannot fast accelerate, missing that the most

Have the spark plugs been checked?

Sounds like a reasonable course of action and 2.5 hours seems very reasonable to get the manifold on and off - I would of thought a bit longer.

 

Octyal's list looks like pretty solid ideas to me -I assume you've eliminated any obvious coil pack wiring harness issue first and checked compression across cylinders 1-4 (lots cheaper than intake removal). Edit: assuming of course cylinder 2 doesn't have a compression issue to fix!

Edited 8 December, 20169 yr by TheClient

We've definitely confirmed that Coilpacks and Sparkplugs are fine - they were all moved around and the high misfire count remained on Cylinder 2.

It is always possible that they will find a different fault, however chat I spoke with said he'd had a 2012 vRS in two months previous with similar symptoms and it was an injector.

OK.  Hope you get to bottom of it. Let us know how it goes.  The coil pack wiring harness was more about looking at the connecting wiring to cyl 2 rather than the actual coil pack itself as you already eliminated that by swapping coil packs around and the problem remaining, The wiring to cyl 2 is however static.

*Disclaimer*

Although I studied car mechanics a long time ago, I've not been involved for many years. I used to do my own servicing, then, as cars got more complex I let others do it for me.

 

So, it was the coil pack - ROFL.

I am now in the process of writing a strong letter to the people who did the diagnostic work for me a couple of weeks ago.

Took the guys today about an hour of moving things around to confirm the coil pack issue. They also said that although the plugs were OK, they were looking like they were nearing replacement time (which is about right for the miles), so I had those replaced at the same time.

Anyway, cost me £179 all in for diagnostics, coil pack, plugs and labour which thankfully isn't as bad as the £400+ quoted for injector work.

However, you guys all said coil packs, I said coil packs and it was coil packs - thread can be concluded

Well, still a fairly happy outcome then. Thanks for confirming back.

Yet more evidence of garage/dealer incompetence/scamming.

You need to complain very loudly indeed, (in front of other customers preferably).

The place in question is a VW/Audi "specialist" and Revo reseller.

I get that it is difficult to do diagnostics sometimes. I also know that you can rule one thing out which then opens up a whole host of possible solutions.

However for them to charge me to tell me that one thing was definitely not faulty....at it was.....pretty unacceptable. Won't name and shame at this stage.

I'll see how my polite request for a refund goes first.

Thread revival - I had a misfire on mine and suspected other stuff as present after switching coil packs around.

Picked up the r8 coilpacks from AKS and the cold misfire has seemingly gone!

 

I have an engine code CCZA. Misfire only when cold and would go when at operating temperature. No EML but VCDS checks showed a misfire on cyl. 2 only.

Hope that helps anyone else looking in the future.

Edited 29 October, 20196 yr by bspman

Another update - no. it has NOT gone. Maybe conditions were just favourable at that point in time.  Will start my own thread rather than hijack this one.