Water pump replaced... now I have a bad ignition coil

I had my water pump replaced yesterday. I don’t know what the shop was thinking, but I got my car back, and the check engine light was on (it wasn’t when I dropped it off). Also, the entire engine compartment was COVERED with coolant. They told me to bring it back in the morning as they were closing. So, my symptoms were loss of power, rough idling and a generally smoky ride. So I got it back to them this morning (still smelling and smoking from the coolant), and they told me I need new a ignition coil, and they could not have possibly caused the problem.



So, the question is, are they full of it? Soaking everything with coolant couldn’t cause the ignition coil to short?

Yes, it is likely that water/coolant in the plug wells was enough to push an old coil over the edge into failure. It’s also possible that the coils were all okay and the only thing you really needed to have done was to dry out the plug wells.
Either way, I’d say that it should be fixed at their expense, not yours. I’m sure they see it differently though.

There is no reason for coolant everywhere in the engine bay due to a water pump replacement. Unless the screwed up the job somehow and caused the coolant to spray out and cover the engine. Only thing that can explain this is they ran the motor and a hose clamp popped off and sprayed the coolant around. Very sloppy work to not clean the mess up and turn the car over to a customer that way. I think the coolant mess caused the coil(s) to short out, therefore misfires caused the check engine codes.

This is just a botched job and they should clean up the motor and replace any coils and/or plugs to make it run properly and then clear the codes turning off the check engine light. You shouldn’t have to pay more because they messed up the job.