MX5Ireland

Hi all
My 99 tenth anniversary has started to missfire intermittently and lose power. There is a strong smell of petrol when this happens and hot metal smell. Is this most likely a coil pack issue with the smell being unburnt fuel which could wreck my cat? She has no t been hard to start at any point and usually the issue disappears when shes left off for a while and then may not reappear for a few days. If it is coils where is the best place to source these? Does anyone know of someone who could check the coil packs in Clare? Any suggestions welcome!

Best regards Hazel

coils dont feck up that often but plug leads and plugs do. Get them checked.

Hi Hazel,

As Sean said, check the leads first (worth changing often anyway, NGK from Moss are prob the better ones), the '99s seem to be a little more likely to cook their coil early, this is the 3rd one I know of recently (last one resulted in an explosion + wreaked cat), I'll find out where he had it repaired and send on the details.

Regards,
Steve

Hi Hazel,

As they both said above, coils don't normally go so you should check\change your leads\plugs before deciding on getting a new coil, as the latter is much more expensive, and the former need to be changed regularly anyway and are relatively cheap.

But in saying all that the MK2 models do have an issue with their coils, and they have a tendency do go around the 10 year mark, which is about now for you I guess.

The other thing it might be is your throttle body, it can cause you to lose power too. I hope not, as this is very expensive.

I'm not sure about your symptoms though. I have a 99MK2 and mine went recently too. The problem with mine was that one half of the coil stopped working intermittently, so that only 2 pistons were firing. When this happened the car sounded like an old, very rough, diesel tractor, and had very little power. It was barely drivable, and had a strong smell of petrol.

It never happened when driving though. It usually happened when the car was warm and I tried to start the engine. For example, if popped down to the shops, then came out and started the car.

The strange thing was that it always managed to fix itself, if left for a while, which could be anything from 2 to 20 mins. I never found out how or why this could happen. I just had to keep starting the engine and trying. If it did fix itself during idling you could hear the engine come back to life again instantly and was always a big relief.

Zanto.

Hi Steve Zanto
The symptons are very much like yours Zanto except that they happen whilst driving. I have seen this before on another car and also with a boat engine would you believe. Leads and plugs dont tend to be as intermittent. Coils in my small experience tend to give intermittent issues when hot my husband tells me.
Was yours a 1.6 or a 1.8 Zanto. Thanks for the input Steve i will replace the leads straight away to eliminate that possibility. Ive sent you a pm about the coil pack you have for sale Zanto.

Thanks guys best regards Hazel.

Definetly check your leads.

On my old sierra there was a tiny break in the plug lead wire. The spark was leaking out every now and again and the car would lost power. I only discovered it one night. When under the bonnet I could see the spark show.

It would be intermittent as the engine vibrates the lead closer to some metal.