My 2000 S-type Jaguar has only 46K miles and has been surprisingly trouble free. Recently,I had to have one of the coils replaced unde an extended warranty which ends in November. The Jag mechanic told me that the others would likely go out soon.
I checked this online and found that there indeed is an issue with the coils.
My questions are: Should I go ahead and have the other 7 coils replaced? We drive to south FL from KY each year and would hate to be stranded in the boonies. I do carry a spare coil just in case. Can a shop other than Jag do the job?
Thanks
hmmmmm…a tough one since I can guarantee that Jaguar will not replace those coils under warranty unless they fail and they cost about $75 each.
I’d wait out the warranty and get any more failures replaced free, the later coils allegedly do fix this problem but you may as well get them replaced under warranty if you can.
Any auto shop worth its salt can replace these once your warranty is up.
When this coil failed did it strand you? Usually they don’t. You will get a CEL and the code will indicate a miss fire. The code will indicate which cylinder and you replace the coil. I don’t think you need to replace the rest of the coils now. Jag is certainly not going to pay to replace them all. I have COP ignition on my car and I would not. The first one went prematurely. I suppose that it would not be a bad idea to keep a spare in the trunk. They don’t take up much space or weigh much. Hunt around the internet for a good price.
If they’re not insanely expensive, you might consider buying one coil and keeping it in the boot. I don’t think all eight of them are going to inevitably fail, but the chances that ONE of them will fail some time in the future is probably somewhat good. Just buying one of them will be significantly cheaper than having someone replace all seven of them and this way, if you do break down in the boonies, you’ll have the part right there and pretty much any mechanic can change one of these. It could turn a multi-day stranding into a couple of hours.
Before I read to the end of your post, I was going to recommend you just carry one spare. That should be more than adequate peace of mind; it’s very unlikely more than one coil will go bad at a time.
Carry an extra one if it makes you feel better and any shop should be able to easily change one of these if necessary. I would not change all of them on a what-if scenario.
What you could consider here is that many times a coil failure is caused by something further down the line. Old spark plugs with a slight misfire, a misfire caused by other influences, or even the installation of the wrong spark plugs.
If the plugs were changed and someone installed plugs with a gap far wider than specified then this could cause a coil failure after a while because the coil is having to work harder to force the spark to jump the plug gap.
Is this car powered by a 4.6L Ford V-8?? If so the coils are available anywhere and anyone can replace them. I destroyed 3 or 4 of them in a Crown Vic by simply washing the engine, so they are tender, especially to water…