Coilpack again... which clyinder is number 2 (1.4 Sport 16V)

[dontbother1979]

6 weeks ago I had a coil-pack go (and took out the connector as well).

On the way back home for Christmas the engine light came on, the car ran rough for the 6 mile to the services (last time the engine lost power stragiht away). I've picked up an ECU reader and coilpack after last time.

The ECU reader comes up with:
16686 (Clyinder 2 missfire) and 17766 (17766 - Cylinder 2 Ignition Circuit: Open Circuit).

hopefully fairly straightforward job of replacing the coilpack. Before diving in to replace the coil pack, google's let me down trying to find out the numbering scheme for the cylinders. (hopefully the monkey mechanics didn't replace cylinder 2 last time ;-) )

Adam

 

[RUM4MO]

Cylinders are numbered from the front of the engine - front being where the timing belt end is - rear is where the gearbox gets stuck to!

If you have the time and inclination, you should look at the new coil and try to work out the date code on it and its manufacturer, when you remove the cylinder two one, do the same and its date code, if it was original, should tie in roughly with the date the car was built. If you really want to find out more you would need to remove another - or all off them so that you could come to a conclusion. Try to ease them up (after unclipping the wiring harness from some of its hold down points to give you some "slack") with a couple of screwdrivers - used close in to where the plug is so that you do not snap it off. I think that a bent bit of welding rod, used as a hook is said to be the perfect tool! Once it is slack and raised up a bit, you can unclip the connector after releasing its tang - watch you don't break it though - try to squeeze the coil and connector together to take the load off the tang first - then ease the tang up with a screwdriver.

 

[dontbother1979]

Thanks, will have a look at replacing tomorrow.... thinking about replacing the other two just in case.

 

[RUM4MO]

What age etc is the car as VAG seem to have picked the bill up for fixing some of them beyond the warranty period - the Polo was about 5 years old and had no VAG service history (always serviced it myself) so it would not qualify any extension to the parts warranty. BTW, this was a huge issue with Audi and VW 1.8T engines - and in USA it almost trashed their image (different design coils though - though still COP)

 

[dontbother1979]

Changed the offending coil pack. (036 095 715 rev A. manufactured week 44/2005)
It's 2006 (the very last before the last Mk4 face-lift), only done 29k miles. t
I've not found a definitive answer for how long coil packs should last (too much noise on google with premature failure)

The difference I can see between the new and old coil packs is the top covering isn't nice and flat (two raised bumps). A couple more coil packs on the way, just in case the other two are about to fail.

I got mixed messages about extended warranty when the other coil pack went.

Colchester Seat suggested there might be some goodwill, (they were fairly certain the 5 year warranty didn't apply to my car) but they were talking mumbo jumbo about computers testing for earth leaks, and human's haven't managed to invent a way of testing coil packs without testing it in the engine itself. I declined the chance of a good will (and an open-ended bill) and went with a fixed price to get the car running again.

Adam