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Car mechanics - hel...
 

Car mechanics - help please ... VW Golf engine issue

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Sort of related. When I had an Octavia (so a VW engine in disguise) 1.8 tsi, I had to change a coil pack when ai had a mis-fire (doing as other said of swapping coil packs and seeing if the mis-fire changed cylinders - which it did. Swapped out for a new one, all good.

Then had a 2nd one fail within about a week. Different cylinder.

So just to say that if the fault re-appears not too long afterwards- don't assume you didnt fix the problem - it is quite possible that a 2nd one happened.  


 
Posted : 18/01/2026 1:24 am
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Posted by: Aus

Hi, thanks for all the guidance.  

I replaced all 4 plugs yesterday (couldn't get the coils locally so thought I'd try just plugs), 15min spin and all seems good.  Obvs need a bit more testing but fingers crossed.  Will update in a few days...

 

What was the condition of the plugs?

 


 
Posted : 18/01/2026 8:48 am
 Aus
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Hi all, 

Car running well so far after changing all the plugs.  Plugs had no obvious cracks, the gap on each was close or accurate (0.7mm), the pin of the plug where it sparks slightly corroded/grey, the plug itself a little sooty ... 


 
Posted : 18/01/2026 10:16 am
Posts: 2096
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Posted by: Aus

Hi all, 

Car running well so far after changing all the plugs.  Plugs had no obvious cracks, the gap on each was close or accurate (0.7mm), the pin of the plug where it sparks slightly corroded/grey, the plug itself a little sooty ... 

Good stuff. Were any of the plugs dirtier/cleaner than the others?

 


 
Posted : 18/01/2026 11:14 am
 Aus
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The threaded section on each plug consistent. But 2 plugs (cylinder 1 &3) had 'soot' on the white body of the plug


 
Posted : 18/01/2026 6:52 pm
 Aus
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All running v well so fingers crossed.  Thanks for the advice


 
Posted : 23/01/2026 9:59 am
anorak reacted
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Thing with plugs these days is they last a hell of a long time with the modern electronics. Dare I say it, we've not replaced the plugs in MrsF's Qashqai (1.6 VVT) in 10 years. Why, it's an absolute pig of a job that needs loads of stuff removing, including the throttle body, and then that needs re-setting (either a ODB reader or a magic accelerator and button press sequence). When they do fail you know about it, same with coil packs.

Glad it's been a simple fix.

 


 
Posted : 23/01/2026 2:07 pm
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