Two miles into a 250+ journey yesterday (in the Fabia), halfway down a sliproad onto the A34, emissions light came on, started blinking then sudden major loss of power.  Scary TBH.  It wasn't rush-hour, but it wasn't quiet.  No hard shoulder, but a drainage gully which we straddled, to be as far off lane 1 as poss, beyond the end of the sliproad.  Only after we got going again did I notice the police speed van on the bridge up the way, with a clear view of us.  Hopefully he/she had asked for a traffic car to come and shield us a bit.

 

I had my laptop and VCDS lead on board, so after popping the bonnet and seeing nothing obvious I plugged it in and saw 'cylinder 1 misfire'.

"Ah-ha, let's hope that's just a coilpack", I thought.

Told the good lady up on the bank not to worry, I could probably fix this.  Swapped out cylinder 1 coilpack for a spare that lives in the car, started it up, all good. Cleared the code, revved it a few times which sounded fine, then found a biggish gap and went for it, with a little worry about quite what would happen...

 

Sweet; revved and pulled no problem at all.

 

We talked about going home and swapping cars, but I was fairly confident it was just the coilpack, from the way it drove with the new one in.  At a petrol stop a few miles later I examined the old pack and found telltale blistering on the top:

 

All three are (were) original and haven't done badly I think; 146000 miles and over 12 years old. Bizarrely I actually had two spares with me on this trip, as I'd raided a few bits and bobs out of the Polo spares, and they're the same.  So still got a spare in case another one goes.

Planning to examine sparkplugs and compression test it in the next day or two just to reassure a bit more that there's nothing major wrong with the engine, but it drove as sweet as usually for the rest of the journey and averaged 44mpg (indicated) which isn't too shabby for a 70mph steady run with this (1.2/12v) engine.

 

Moral of the story. Carry something to scan your car with, and at least one spare coilpack if you're running on 'mature' ones.  

(date code is visible in the bottom right corner, ww/yy, week 39 2004 in this case)

 

 

The laptop and finding a lead I could probably cope with - but the softwares a bit out of my price range! 

VCDS lite is a free download.

 

BTW, can you see the picture? I'm on the edge of the internet here, and I can only see a stripe of it!

Edited 31 January, 20179 yr by Wino

Yes the picture is fine, I've always said that the Eldor ones are some of the best, though my wife's previous Polo needed two of the originals changing, luckily for me it was the "the car was running rough on the way home" that I was getting when I got home from work - though the last of my part used spares is currently triple wrapped waiting to be used in the boot of the late 2009 Ibiza!  Now that I have a netbook and most places we stay at friends or hotels have wifi, I tend to carry the VCDS stuff with me when on a longer journey or away. It is quite smart when you know exactly which coil has gone!  I've never seen one that had damage that showed up on the outside though - just quiet failures!

 

I used to run an old exPO van, an Anglia, it shouted out for new throttle spindle seals at the most awkward moments - I had some string and a tube of RTV - job done, just messy hands! (it should really have got its carb body sleeved and a new throttle spindle, buy heh, we were young and adventurous!

Edited 31 January, 20179 yr by rum4mo

I always carry a spare coil pack, 1/4 socket set and a OBD scanner just in case

Im thinking it is like the old days? If the ignition is on for a long time without engine running the current in the coil will be to high, and the windings inside will overheat? This coils is not there words best i think!? In the  principle the computer should turn off the current to the coils, but Im not sure it is lake this in the Fabia-ECU? Something to think about?

 

There is no current to the coil packs unless the ECU senses the engine turning over via the cam position sensor or the crank sensor, depending on the engine.

I fitted new ones to the other two cylinders yesterday, hopefully to reduce the chances of a repetition of this when I'm not in the car, as the missus was a bit dubious when I said I could have talked her through it on the phone.

One used/known good old one as spares in each of our cars now (and hers boxed along with home-made puller tool; she gets looked after ).

 

Never got round to compression testing or looking at the sparkplugs.  Maybe come springtime...

 

 

Edited 12 February, 20179 yr by Wino