In August, the check engine light came on in my '01. Car ran and idled rough, lacked power, and the smell of raw gasoline was coming out of the exhaust. Dealer replaced ignition coil on cylinder #1. No problems with catalytic converter, fortunately, from the raw fuel. Car was "back to normal." Now, check engine light is back on. Same roughness, power drain, smell. Dealer is replacing ignition coils on #2 and 3! (Won't do 4, since computer says it's fine.) Dealer says this doesn't happen with S2000s; my problem(s) is rare. Anyone else experienced bad coil, much less three of them? Will #4 be dying shortly? Thanks.

 

A friend of mine owns a mazda 6. He had rough idle, lack of power, etc. Turns out 3 of his 5 coils were dead...

Never heard of that many going before

 

You're running stock spark plugs? A really large gap on the spark plugs will make the required spark voltage much higher. Theoretically that can pop coils. If the coils aren't seated properly on the plugs so, there's an air gap, you could get the same thing.

I'd replace the spark plugs with OEM ones.

 

also check to make sure you tq the plugs properly.

 

Thanks, ek9. I emailed your suggestions to my service mgr. at the dealer.

 

I guess all's well that end's well. Hopefully. I get to the dealer, ask how much the repairs will run (they hadn't totalled them up when I called to see if the car was ready!) and they say $0.00! They'd replaced the coil on #1 cylinder and the one on #2. Since the #1 had gone bad two months ago, maybe they messed up when replacing it, and it caused #2 to go bad this time as well. Who knows! In any event, they also changed the oil and filter (seems the oil got contaminated with gas), the plugs, and even put a new battery in my key fob (don't ask!!!!). The oil and plugs weren't changed when they did #1 coil originally, so maybe that caused the new one to fail, and #2, also. Let's hope this is the end of the coil problems!

 

Props to that dealer for taking care of you.