1.4 petrol BBY rough running misfire ?

jonbad

jonbad

Member
Hello all,
Sorry for yet another technical gremlin query... I'm currently on holiday in Germany! The car had been running beautifully in the UK until i get here of course...
Basically, when driving along it is ok, but acceleration is very lumpy, like it is misfiring. Annoyingly, although i had the foresight to bring with me a spare new coil stick and my vagcom computer, there are no errors reported after doing a full scan!
To describe the problem a little further...
Starts fine (when hot or cold).
Acceleration is ok when cold (mostly, it's a bit of a lumpy engine at the best of times anyway!)
Acceleration is terrible and lumpy between about 1500 right up to 3000rpm
Idle is fine (both when cold or hot).
Holding a speed (e.g. On a motorway) is also ok.

My gut feeling is it's a coil stick as i recently had one give up and the symptoms were similar. However, that was easy enough to figure out which one it was as there was a misfire recorded on the ecu. This time though, no error thrown up, no warning lights, nothing...

Any advice, magic solutions etc. very much welcome!

All the best to you all,

Jon.
 
It'll sound odd, but check your oil level. I say this because I've experienced a similar misfiring feeling in a couple of cars that was solved by topping up the oil. In both cases the oil was low, but above the minimum and so didn't bring on the warning light. I can only think that causes a sticky tappet or something and a misfire that way. I know the dipstick can be a git to read, but I think the level can be checked with vagcom. I'll try and find a link.
 
Thanks for the reply, I will check the oil level in the morning, but I had done a full service on the car [a few weeks] before leaving and checked the oil the actual night before the trip abroad and all was perfect, so (unfortunately for me) I doubt that it will be so simple, but certainly worth the check.
Any other ideas in the meantime are welcome, otherwise I can foresee I will be swapping out coil packs and test driving in-between to see if that sorts it, seeing as I don't know which cylinder is misbehaving!
Thanks again
Jon.
 
Just to update on this, swapped out the coil pack with a new spare that I had brought with me and guessed I'd change the newest coil pack first on cylinder number 4. So far so good, so it seems my hunch was correct (and I am sure glad I was and had the parts!). Sadly, it appears the recent one I installed was a duff as it's only about two months old.

Car running great again.

By the way, checked oil and all was perfect - reassuring!
 
:cool:

If I had a coilpacked car I'd carry a spare as well, it's made it have less of an impact on your holiday :)
 
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