The car started stuttering on the way home today with about 10 miles to go. With about 7 miles to go the Check Engine light started flashing. I was thinking misfire because I had the exact same behavior a little over a year ago which turned out to be a bad coil on cylinder #2. After just a few seconds of apparent misfiring the Check Engine light stopped flashing and came on solid. I pulled over into a parking lot within 1/4 mile. Got a lift home then back to the car with my code reader (why don't I just leave it in the car!?) and sure enough misfire on cylinder 1, P0301 with a P1313. This means the intake has to come off the car and I'm pretty sure the hotel where I parked would not like me doing that amount of work in their very public parking lot. Add to that my tool box is 7 miles away so if I find out I didn't bring ALL the right tools I get stuck. So being a cheapskate who doesn't want to pay for towing I came up with these possible options. Hoping for some advice and opinion.

1) Disconnect cylinder #1 fuel injector and drive home in limp mode. No fuel delivered to cylinder #1 means no damage to the catalytic converter, right?

or...

2) Drive 2 miles and pull over for 30 minutes. Let the car cool off and the unburned fuel from cylinder 1 burn/evaporate out of the catalytic convertor. Then drive 2 more miles and repeat. This would get me home in not that much time and avoid towing fees.

 

If I understand your situation you need to drive about 7 miles or so to get home to make repairs. If that's correct then just drive it home. Go easy on the accelerator and take it nice and easy. Flashing CEL indicates possible cat damage so take it easy and don't get it flashing.

 

I agree. When I had a couple of suspected plugs and coils fail, I drove about 25 kilometres and carefully applied power, but not too much. I took it easy until I got home, but never got the dreaded CEL flashing. No problems.

 

The CEL is on solidly, not flashing. As I was driving I felt a slight hesitation due to misfire. From first misfire to a few misfires per minute over the course of 10 minutes. About 10 minutes after I felt the first misfire the CEL started flashing. It seemed like seconds but could have been 1 minute later the CEL stayed on, no more flashing. I drove another 2 minutes to get the car off the road. Onset of CEL flashing to shutting off the car was ~3 minutes.

Seems like a very quick death for a coil and/or spark plug. Last year when I lost a coil it was several days of progressively worse symptoms.