VW Fox 1.4 misfiring

almostover

Sister has one of these. She was driving from Dublin to Cork today and engine management light came on near Thurles. She pulled in at Cashel, checked oil, water etc.and all was fine. Proceeded back to Cork. I read the fault code with my cheap ODB scanner - P0302, Cylinder 2 misfire. Cleared the code and went for a drive, all fine, engine running well with good power.

Left the car idling while I looked under the bonnet, idle was lumpy, revs pulsing. No sign of any leaks in any air hoses. Car has one coil pack with a HT lead running to each spark plug. Leads look old but I inspected them and all are intact. Had no tools with me so couldn't take the plugs out to swap them. Also failed to swap the HT leads, engine was red hot from the drive down from Dublin and the leads were welded onto the plugs. Car then decided to cut out all by itself while idling. Started up again fine but engine light back on. P0302 again. Cleared it and I couldn't get the light to come back on and engine ran fine again. The fault is very intermittent.

I'm thinking it's a coil pack or HT lead problem but without my tools it was difficult to diagnose. Anyone here have similar experiences? Engine is a 1.4 petrol, engine code BKR. Any help appreciated.

mikeecho

Swap the coil packs between 1 & 2 , and if the problem moves to cyl 1, then it's the coil pack.

Toyotafanboi

It doesn't have pencil coils, it has leads from a single coil.

I'd just put a set of plugs in it, if there's no misfire faults for any other cylinder. It's a cheap process of elimination. Sounds like the fault is permanent so you should know immediately if it's sorted or not.

almostover

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

It doesn't have pencil coils, it has leads from a single coil.

I'd just put a set of plugs in it, if there's no misfire faults for any other cylinder. It's a cheap process of elimination. Sounds like the fault is permanent so you should know immediately if it's sorted or not.

I'll get a chance to look at it again this evening. I put a set of long life NGK iridium plugs in this time last year so I'll be disappointed if one has failed so soon. Might be a lead too so I'll swap them around if I can get them off.

mikeecho

If you're changing a plug. Change all the spark plugs .

Likewise. Change all the coil packs.
If one coil pack fails, the rest won't be far behind.

almostover

Got sorted fairly easily in the end, sister took the car to a local mechanic who diagnosed it as a dodgy HT lead. He was busy but had a second hand one which he put on as a temporary fix. Car is running fine again. Will get 4 new leads and install.