AA Zone | Forum | Cracked coil pack or shot cat converter?

Cracked coil pack or shot cat converter?

Original Post

Posted At
27/10/2009

Stellarjules

I bought my fiesta last year October (a year ago today nearly)

In August on our way on holiday – 5 min from Basingstoke, my engine light came on (amber). We called the AA who said it was an oxygen sensor and that it was fine.
Off on holiday to Suffolk, so a decent drive, nothing happened until about a month later we went camping for the August bank holiday and on the last day, the light came on again. Again, the AA patrol man came out and fixed it temporarily but then 10 min later it was on again. We then had to get our car towed and squashed into a friend’s car to get home.

The car went to the garage, the Ford one in Southampton, where a month before I’d had a full service, and it had just been MOTd.
They said I needed a new coil pack, a new cat converter and all new plugs or it would be unsafe to drive – this was going to cost over £600! When I mentioned the previous MOT, they ‘had to call me back’ but then said that because I’d driven over 2000miles since the MOT that my plugs were shot. They treated me like they could pull the wool over my eyes, perhaps because I’m female, and being used to this by garages I asked my husband to deal with them instead.

My husband called around and spoke to a mechanic at another garage, apparently, if the coil pack is cracked it can sometimes have a knock on effect and the readings for the cat can be unreliable.
We asked the garage to just change the coil pack and plugs and we would see. They said that they would but it wouldn’t fix it. Since then (Aug), the engine light has not come back on and the car has been driving as before *touch wood*

Any opinions – do you think this was just a coil pack problem or am I going to get into trouble with my Cat converter as the garage said? Or do you think that the garage was just looking at all the symptoms at once without seeing how they could affect each other?

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Stellarjules Posts: 3	Subject: Cracked coil pack or shot cat converter? Posted At: 27/10/2009 16:19:46 I bought my fiesta last year October (a year ago today nearly) In August on our way on holiday – 5 min from Basingstoke, my engine light came on (amber). We called the AA who said it was an oxygen sensor and that it was fine. Off on holiday to Suffolk, so a decent drive, nothing happened until about a month later we went camping for the August bank holiday and on the last day, the light came on again. Again, the AA patrol man came out and fixed it temporarily but then 10 min later it was on again. We then had to get our car towed and squashed into a friend’s car to get home. The car went to the garage, the Ford one in Southampton, where a month before I’d had a full service, and it had just been MOTd. They said I needed a new coil pack, a new cat converter and all new plugs or it would be unsafe to drive – this was going to cost over £600! When I mentioned the previous MOT, they ‘had to call me back’ but then said that because I’d driven over 2000miles since the MOT that my plugs were shot. They treated me like they could pull the wool over my eyes, perhaps because I’m female, and being used to this by garages I asked my husband to deal with them instead. My husband called around and spoke to a mechanic at another garage, apparently, if the coil pack is cracked it can sometimes have a knock on effect and the readings for the cat can be unreliable. We asked the garage to just change the coil pack and plugs and we would see. They said that they would but it wouldn’t fix it. Since then (Aug), the engine light has not come back on and the car has been driving as before touch wood Any opinions – do you think this was just a coil pack problem or am I going to get into trouble with my Cat converter as the garage said? Or do you think that the garage was just looking at all the symptoms at once without seeing how they could affect each other?
Shortfuse Posts: 1	Subject: Re: Cracked coil pack or shot cat converter? Posted At: 03/11/2009 14:49:44 You don’t give the engine size, or vehicle mileage so can’t tell which service was carried out, but on the 1.25 Fiesta the spark plugs are renewed every three years or at 36000 mile intervals. It’s possible that the plugs weren’t due for renewal at the last service. Coil packs don’t give much warning of failure – they are either working or they’re not. If they do fail then best practice is to renew all the spark plugs when you’re changing the coil pack as the coils could have been damaged by high resistance in the spark plugs. In terms of the catalytic converter, the garage may have thought that the engine had been misfiring because of the faulty coil pack in which case the converter could have been damaged by unburned fuel.
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