Greetings! Some families play games and get ice cream. We do that stuff too, but we also get greasy together. To go back in time a bit, we were planning on leaving town and hours before leaving, an ignition coil blew on the family car. I know it’s not the bug. Having been planning this trip for 12 months, it is disheartening when the only car we have that will make the trip starts in with the problems. While I was at work, my beautiful wife took the car to have the codes read. Of course, they were vague at best, but this has happened before and I suspected it was a coil based on how it felt.
Keep up with the basics
During the process, we also found it was time to do the spark plugs. We already dropped the kids off at the grandparent’s house, so I was on my own. I only had 1 coil to test with, so as I changed the spark plugs, I swapped coils one at a time until the car ran good again. Success! We were off and running with new plugs and a new coil.
Success was short lived
We got about half way to our destination and the familiar feeling of misfires comes back to haunt us. Luckily, we passed by a big box auto parts store that offers free code scans. This time, the code was more specific to the cylinder that had the misfire (since the plugs were new and the other coil is now fixed). Armed with this information, we knew exactly which coil to replace. Alas, the store did not have any in stock, and neither did the one in the city we were visiting. No problem, we could make it the last few miles and order one in. Sure enough, they were able to ship next day to the store closer to us. So we got breakfast the next morning and borrowed a 10mm socket and wrench from the store and in 15 min all was right with the world. Or, at least the car.
More to the story
Included in the scan, we saw some more codes. The ABS speed sensors on both sides in the front, needed replaced. Having never done these before, I decided to wait until after we returned home to get into that job. I did this mainly to spend some grime time with the kids. I ordered a set of sensors online. They beat the box stores by half the price, so yeah. They sensors arrived on Saturday, and we all dressed for getting greasy. I had one kid do the right side (all by her lonesome and she completed the job easily and correctly), and me and the other kid did the left. Just in time for dinner, the car was shifting a bit better, but we still had the check engine light. Today after work, I pulled the battery and reset the codes. All clear, and a big thanks to my little pit crew!