Just been merrily bashing my way through Christmas traffic trying to get to work when all of a sudden the car started running like a dog with the CEL flashing, so pulled over on the hard shoulder, plugged in the OBDII reader and this came up on the app-

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P0304 code. Drove it very slowly the 5 miles back home so I could dump it and get a lift to work, but I could see people indicating how badly it stank of fuel who were behind. Not an injector this time then, so would it likely be the coil pack given out? I've got spare plugs so I'm gonna have a swap around this afternoon before work but getting hold of a coil pack before Xmas is likely impossible.

Also, after firing 5 miles worth of unburnt fuel down into the cat, what's the likelihood that's wrecked? The cat is already 14 years old with 80k miles...

 

Destroying the cat highly unlikely, it's heat and vibration that will kill it, it's not like bore wash.

I'd imagine your car would have been running like a 3 cylinder.

It boils down to fueling and ignition the basics that are map sensor, coilpacks, spark plug. Run the car and swap coilpacks around whilst idling if the suspect coilpack is faulty it won't make any difference when swapping around different cylinder. Running rich as you described is indicative of it not igniting.

 

Check/swap coilpacks first then spark plug ends.

 

Cheers guys, I'll do that

 

if you find it is them rockauto is the place to get them from

 

If you're desperate and need a coil pack (or plugs, for that matter) then I've got spares.

Near Guildford, if it helps!

PM if it's any help.

Dan

 

Cheers bud, very kind of you! Used to be in Farnham but live in the Welsh valleys these days, but thanks anyway. The Mrs is 8 months prego so I've commandeered her vehicle for work over Xmas.

Thanks for the RockAuto tip as well, got an O2 sensor from them previously at a good price.

 

My plug gaps never made it until the change interval and thus fried one coil pack, also intermittented a second.

I changed the lot.

 

My last one spat a plug out (No. 4 as I recall) which then fried the cool pack. Whilst everyone was sure this was a fairly rare thing it may be worth checking that they're torqued appropriately whilst you're at it.

 

Turns out there's a handful of non OEM (non Denso) providers for coils. Anyone have experience with any of these?

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All likely do the same job as well as each other but if they're known junk I'll just go with the double price Denso units.