My CEL came on last Friday driving home from a meeting, 60 miles from home, and the engine began to run rough. After a few seconds of blinking, the CEL remained steady so I limped home. I ordered a new coil and when I pulled the #3 coil off it was cracked on two sides out of four. My Durametric told me the misfire was in cylinder 3. I installed the new coil but no joy. Today I pulled the coil out again and replaced the plug also, even though the old one looked fine except for some unburned bits of carbon on the electrodes, due to the cylinder not firing I assume. Still no joy, so I'm stumped. The only think I can figure (I hope) is that the coil plug isn't down far enough to seat in the coil. This is very hard to access, and the boot blocks verifying that the plug is seated. So I'm going to raise the car once more to see if I can somehow get the plug seated better and hope this is the problem.
other option is a bad injector. silly question are you sure you're on the correct side of the engine? its easy to get confused, ask me how I know.
#3 is rearmost cylinder on the right (passenger) side. The coil was badly cracked when I removed it, so I thought for sure this was the problem, and it still may be, as I just can't verify that the electrical plug is seated in the socket on the coil, there isn't enough room to get my hand on it to push down firmly, and the boot hides the connector so I can't tell whether it is seated or not. I'll check the injector after I've made sure the coil plug is seated. I need someone with tiny hands to come over and help.
This morning I finally bit the bullet and pulled the right exhaust manifold and cat so I could have room to get my hands up to the coil connector. Still close, but I could get a needle nose plier on the plug and used a screwdriver to push the boot up out of the way so I could see the plug snapping down on the coil. I then put everything back together and cranked the car, SUCCESS! No CEL and no rough running. Just proves sometimes you do the job right but for one tiny little part.
Excellent and nice work.
Eddie
Can you tell me your definition of 'rough' please?
I have a similar issue I think posted here
http://www.planet-9.com/987-cayman-boxster-problems-complaints/108398-cel-vibration-spluttering.html
I'm hoping its the same
The engine was running on only 5 cylinders, so it was running ragged. I don't know how else to describe it, the effect was obviously not a smooth running powerplant as it normally is. Acceleration greatly exaggerated the rough running, coasting made it almost smooth, almost but not quite.
