highway driving with going coil

livelifefreely

livelifefreely

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I've got a coil starting to go bad. When I try to accelerate going between 40 and 60 it wants to sputter. Let up on gas and it goes away. My question is that I've got to go out of town and will be on the highway for about 3 1/2 to 4 hrs. Does anyone know if that would cause a problem? I don't want to damage the engine. I was going to change all the coils when it got a little warmer but haven't got to it yet.
 
I don't think it damages the engine. After a while it will destroy the cats since it is dumping unspent fuel into them. That's what happened to me, I did it purposely though to punish the dealership since they f'd up my coil replacement 4 times, forcing them to pay for new cats too. This was after the 4 times with about 2 weeks to a month of driving since the coils going bad each time.

I'd say you should be fine, but try and fix it as soon as you can or else it'll cost you a new set of cats which aren't cheap eventually.
 
No one can really tell you the answer to that question. Ideally you should change the coils now. However I ran bad coils in my car for about 3 months. I just got use to knowing when to let off the gas. When I finally replaced mine I had 5 oil soaked coils. Ken from Ben's (Cammerfe) can tell you how many were actually bad as I sent them to him for his science project.
 
I've driven 12 hour trips multiple times with that one bad coil thing going on..

+1 to pga
 
Funny, I JUST went through this same decision.

Starting about a year ago, I would have a misfire..maybe once per month, and only when I would give it full throttle, then the RPM's would drop about 2k, stutter, then pick right back up. Again, this only happened maybe once per month. (also, I had already changed my valve cover gaskets about 1 year prior to this occurring, so I figured my plug wells were dry).

Sooo..cut to last week, JUST when Im about to head out on a 1200 mile roundtrip drive. I noticed that under mild acceleration, between 1500 and about 2500 rpm while the car was in 4th or 5th gear (light load), I could feel missing and sputtering. Decided to make the trip, since the car still idled fine, and no CEL was on. About 300 miles into the trip, while cruising along on cruise control, I hit the "+" button on the steering wheel to accelerate a bit. The car dropped RPM's very abruptly, the cruise went off on its own, then the rpm's shot back up very harshly before dropping down again. This occurred several times, and each time, it felt VERY harsh on the driveline.

Long story short, made it back home safely. The following day driving around town, the familiar low rpm stuttering/sputtering happened again..followed by a CEL that came on for all of 1 second. And then, the rough idle 100% of the time. Pulled the code (even though the check engine light stayed off after coming on for that 1 second) and it read p0302.

I plan to replace all 8 coils this weekend.
 
PGA2B said:
No one can really tell you the answer to that question. Ideally you should change the coils now. However I ran bad coils in my car for about 3 months. I just got use to knowing when to let off the gas. When I finally replaced mine I had 5 oil soaked coils. Ken from Ben's (Cammerfe) can tell you how many were actually bad as I sent them to him for his science project.
Click to expand...
All five were at least weak. Here's a question---were the boots damaged in removal or found in that condition?
KenS from Ben's Place
 
Sounds like glanga and myself has the same issue.
My VCG on the passenger side went out, which knocked out two coils, but because of work I wound up having to drive for a day and half.
Got everything fixed, then a week later, my car would not accelerate like normal which then got worse over the next couple of days. Took it in and wound up having the catalytic converter replaced.
So if you are under 80,000 miles/8 years which is the warranty EPA emissions enforces, then I would do what I had to do.
 
Replaced all 8 coils over the weekend with the set of 8 for $150 from the ebay seller in Florida. 6 of them had no sticker, 2 of them had a blue sticker with either a Ford or Motorcraft number. All were identical in design to the 8 that came out of the car.

So far, car is running fine again. Smooth idle, smooth acceleration with no stumbling/no misfire.
 
I just made a call into my local dealer here in NY about a failed cat converter, my LS is under 8yrs/80,000 and yet, they told me they could not replace the converters because the failure was due to contamination (un-spent fuel) meanwhile while the car was under warranty they had to replace my coils 3 times as well as the gasket, what a f'n joke.
 
Take it to court. The catalytic converter was a direct result of the coils going most likely. All that unspent fuel gets dumped into them.

My dealer replaced them for me without a dime out of my pocket, it was completely covered under warranty since that "contamination" was caused by another part of the failing which was under warranty.

Cats are expensive and they just dont want to pay.
 
Just hope you don't get on any major trucking routs and throw the car into fail safe while in the fast lane.

Even worst, hope it dont shut down completely.
 
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