Hello all,

 

Suprise, suprise I've got an engine problem with a mk2 Vrs...

 

I've had the car for over a year and haven't had any issues up until now. She's on 42k and gets serviced regularly. It's a 63 plate so the CTHE engine.

 

Over the last couple weeks I've had pretty bad problems with misfiring. It started off when I was giving it some beans in S, the engine light flashed up for a couple of seconds then turned off and it was a bit spluttery under acceleration. Nothing really happened for a couple of days and then it started missing on idle and now it's gotten pretty rough.

 

When you start the car nothing happens but when it gets up to temperature it starts missing and I've recently noticed the exhaust is smoking a fair amount. It smells a bit rich and the smoke is white.

 

I changed all 4 coils and plugs and plugged in an OBD reader. There's 5 codes reading "random misfire" "multiple cylinder misfire" "misfire cylinder 1...2...3...4"

 

I've had a garage look at it and they don't know what's wrong with it so I thought I'd give you guys a shout.

 

If you need any more info feel free to ask.

 

Cheers,

Alex

White smoke usually means head gasket, is it using coolant?

Its just at the min line. I don't remember it being that low so might’ve just started. Would that explain the misfire though?

Yes.

Could be related to that failing water pump part, I did a video of it in water pump thread I was hardly losing any coolant, is your compression ok in each cylinder (you may need this to be checked first)

Sounds like timing related if all cylinders are misfiring 

You should check compression and if it’s off, valve seat may not fully close due to carbon buildup. A cheap camera to give a look to the piston crown and  you could see also the seats if they have some gunk in it.

More than likely the wrong plug's or coils were fitted?

 

To have 4 cylinder's misfiring isn't usually the sign that your going to lose a piston with with these engines and with you having the CTHE build its even more unlikely, Tends to be one cylinder that gives or 2 if your really unlucky. Grab yourself a set of compression tools from amazon for round £15.

 

You'll soon find an answer.

Thanks for all the replies. Everything's a bit hectic right now so I haven't had a chance to sort it. The plugs were changed in December and I had no problems up until now when they were changed again and the issue is the same so I don't think it would be that. I'll look into getting a compression tester. It's been at a local garage for a week for them to tell me there's no fault codes so nothings wrong with it. They clearly haven't driven it...

Take it away from that garage, if they've had it a week it means they don't have a scooby what's wrong with it.

23 hours ago, sepulchrave said:

Take it away from that garage, if they've had it a week it means they don't have a scooby what's wrong with it.

Good call mate , a stretched timing chain would cause a misfire on all cylinders can you video the sound of the engine on idle 

So I seem to have found the issue. After reading another post about plugs leading yo missfire I bought some new ones and gapped them down to 0.6mm. I've driven it around a bit and I can't feel any stutters or misfiring. Thanks for all the help everyone.

On 28/08/2021 at 14:16, TheGreenPeople said:

So I seem to have found the issue. After reading another post about plugs leading yo missfire I bought some new ones and gapped them down to 0.6mm. I've driven it around a bit and I can't feel any stutters or misfiring. Thanks for all the help everyone.

 

What plugs did you go for?

Denso SKJ20CR's

9 minutes ago, TheGreenPeople said:

Denso SKJ20CR's

 

Amazing, new spark plugs fixed the coolant loss as well?

The coolant level hasn't changed off the min line, I don't think it was drinking any.

why is it on min though ?

Leave it on the max line rather than min

If you top up to the MAX line and then after it has had an up to temp run it sets the level at between MIN & MAX then mark that with a freezer pen and monitor.

 

If there was an actual 'FILL TO THIS LEVEL', line they would have put that on the reservoir.