95 Vanden Plas. My #1 coil stopped working. I replaced it and car ran smooth again. It is now missing again and I took all the coils out one at a time and they all appear to be working. Does anyone know what could casue this? Maybe because they do spark does not mean they are working properly. When I put the car in drive, it missing sometimes and you can see the motor jerk from it missing. It also sounds like I hear a popping sound coming from around the #2 coil. I was told that the coils sometimes ground themselve out, if that makes sense.

 

There's quite a bit of history of coil failure on these cars....sometimes failing in mysterious ways and causing strange symptoms.

A month or two ago I was able to identify two defective coils with an ohm meter. Other owners observe arcing when running the engine in a dark garage. Still others report visible evidence of coils burning and shorting out. Some report none of the above and still end up fixing mis-fires by replacing coils, often all at once...which is an expensive guess.

There seems to be some evidence that if one goes bad the others are not far behind. I myself have just recently noticed an occasional glitch at idle and on cold starts. I'm tempted to just replace the other four coils.

Of course there could be other causes. Are you getting a check engine light? Any trouble codes?

Cheers
DD

 

well, I do have a CEL now, but that normally does not happen. I pulled in a driveway yesterday and turned really fast and the car cut off. I was low on fuel though. I wonder if O'reillys Auto parts here in Texas can hook it up to check the codes. When I pulled the coils one by one, I stuck a spark plug at the end of them. I laid it up against the engine and watched it spark. Some sparks were stronger/brighter at times, but still appeared to spark consistant.