Help help help please/

S

solekeeper

Member
Ok, so I'm sitting in the FX after driving say 10 minutes.. Everything is fine and all of a sudden the car starts vibrating erratically.. So I sit and think for a second and i'm not daydreaming.
I cut the car off and back on, same thing.
I now have to go to class, praying that when I come back it will be fine.
I was wrong, Same vibration at idle, so I start up to listen and it sounds like something is restricting the air flow.. Sounded like a busted evo.
So i start driving to get home, and check engine light starts blinking. Never steady, just blinking.

I get home thank god, and smell something funny. I look under the car and one of the converters (right side) is red hot. Like something is stuck on it... I'm thinking oh god...
I come back with a flashlight but the heat has released and the converter isn't red anymore.


ANYONE ANY INPUT? please help.....
 
that needs imediate attention, sounds like a dead miss... the converter may be glowing cause one cylinder is dumping unburned fuel & it's igniting in the exhaust.

if your looking to fix this yourself start with replacing or checking the plugs & checking each coil for spark, inspecting the coil & lead, maybe oil saturated is causing the miss, a kinda common issue oil leaking into the spark plug well...
 
I doubt my dad would want me to stab at something like this, I just did my brakes and he almost had a heart-attack about it.

Does a dealer cover any of the above? :x
 
I just checked, and warranty does cover the catalytic converters.

I dropped vehicle off this morning, started it up and took off to try to avoid them from getting too hot again.
Dealership has not yet contacted me about what the exact problem is.
 
Car has 32,3xx on it. 05 Warranty up in April, talk about dodging one....

I'm in south fla btw. So I don't think me calling you would do anything, lol.
(Didn't mean to sound rude if i was) Were you going to provide me with info of some sort?
 
Got the car back today, didn't really feel like they wanted to fix it though. I came in because they called my dad to pick it up, guy came up and said hey.. And then told asked the receptionist for our paperwork then I signed. He then said K, have a good day.
I was thinking to myself wtf? You're not even going to explain what went wrong, why it went wrong, what you guys did to fix it?
I said thanks, and i'm going to go start the car (Implying for him to come outside) But he didn't oblige, so I went out and I was just angry at this point... I wanted something to be wrong so I could raise hell for the poor service.


But anyway, turbo was right.
Had code P0301 due to a shorted ignition coil.
They replaced it.. I had no idea what to check for, so I started it and listened then revved it, then looked under at the cat to see if it was glowing but no glo. So apparently we're good.

Now, my question is, where is the ignition coil located? Or what is it?
I'm not into the whole technical scene.. sorry.
And how many coils do I have? And how do I know if another won't go on me?
And my warranty ends next month, so how much is this too?
 
older cars used to have a distributor that turned, & a spark plug wire from the distributor to each spark plug, the distributor was feed with 1 ign coil that fired each plug respectively.

newer cars such as ours use a direct ign, no more distributor, no more spark plug wires, instead, each spark plug has it's own coil, directly attached to each spark plug. you have 6, one for each plug. they are located right above the plug, if you look you can not see any sparkplug, all you see it the squarish head of each coil in the valve cover. unbolt it & slide it out, the plug is in the hole below the coil...

think each coil is a bit under $100 from the dealer...

---------- Post added at 04:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:53 PM ----------

oh yeah, as far as what the coil is,the ign coil itself is a transformer of sort, it steps up the 12 v to a crazy high voltage, maybe around 30k, 40k & even 50k volts & more in some cases, enough to cause the spark that the plug delivers to ignite the air/fuel in the cylider, causing combustion:wink:
 
yes, if the coil is bad it won't fire the plug... if this condition lasted a long time then it could foul the plug, but when a new coil is installed the plug should fire again asuming it did'nt get fouled or flooded... even if it did a little it would probably clear itself as it ignited over & over with the new coil...also possible they may have changed the plug & not even told you about it...
 
Oh k. Btw, how does an ignition coil short anyway? And this can happen on any of the 6 coils at any given time?

And another dumb question
The number of cylinder=Number of ignition coils?
 
coils shorting are not so common, coils do go bad though,, not sure how they determined it was "shorted" unless they found a problem there.

on a direct fire ign then yeah, usually one coil per cylinder or sometimes coil packs, which are multiple coils built into one. cars with distributors can have only one coil for the whole system though...

I wouldn't worry all that much of it happening again really. hopefully they didn't find oil in that one plug hole though... that might kill a coil. if they did, then they should have addressed the valve cover problem under warranty, hopefully they weren't jerks & just ignored a problem like that & just stuck a new coil in... I would think if they saw another problem there they would have let you know at least...
 
Man, I sure wish I knew how to check this myself. I hope they did as you said.
I'm done with them though, i'm going to go to my nearest Nissan dealership next time.
 
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