I had posted earlier about having a flashing check engine light, terrible idle and no power. Codes suggested an air leak, bad MAF sensor, or serious misfire. Since I had MAF sensors problems in the past, I replaced the MAF sensor, but that was not the problem.

Since Bosch plugs were on sale for $1.19 each, and my plugs had 40,000 miles, it seemed like a good time to replace them, and if that didn't help, swap the coils around, to see if the misfire moved to a different cylinder. Plus, this seemed like a perfect time to do a compression check. I removed all the plugs and, since it had never been a problem with other cars in the past, did not take any steps to disable the ignition. (Mistake #1). Following the compression test, the car cranked but not even a hint of trying to start. At this point, there was no way to tell where there were signals and where there weren't. I was faced with throwing expensive parts at it, or taking it to the dealer, since the computer was not showing any codes. My suspicion was that either the ECU was ruined, or all 5 coils had blown up.

The dealer said there was no signal from either the cam sensor or the crank sensor and wanted to replace both. Although my "that doesn't make sense" alarms were going off, I agreed to it (Mistake #2). The next morning, it occured to me that, if there is no signal into these sensors, there would be no signal out. I tried to call the dealer to ask if they had checked for the presence of power into the sensors, but no one called me back, so I drove over there. At this point, they said "you need 5 new coils". Since this is one of things I suspected in the first place, I agreed, but said, "if the car starts with the new coils, I want you to put my old sensors back in." They agreed, but called back & said that the old sensors showed intermittent faults. So, I agreed to go with the new sensors. (When I picked up the car, they gave me a printout that seems to suggest that the new sensors are giving intermittent faults also.)

Then, they called back & said that they drove the car, and although it runs fine, the check engine light came back on, and it was smoking. "Maybe it's the oxygen sensors, or the catalytic converter. They wanted another $140 to do more diagnosis. I said "enough", and brought the car home. There was a code for "permanent fault - front oxygen sensor", and no sign of smoking. The sensor was covered with white deposits (any idea what that could be? or is that normal). A new sensor cured the codes, and 25 miles of test driving and 4 restarts later, still no codes. If the catalytic converter was harmed, I'll find out next spring, when the next smog check is due. If there is damage, it is not bad enough to set codes, but I just had to replace the converter on my 155K Plymouth minivan because it wasn't doing the job & couldn't pass smog, and it had no codes either. (Probably cause, was that the previous owner drove it thousands of miles with a Check Engine light on for a misfire, but maybe 155K miles is all you can expect from a converter.)

I'm pretty sure that the original problem was one or two bad coils. This was an expensive lesson on precautions to take with distributorless ignition systems. But the way I look at it, car repair is like learning to play poker - it costs you money to learn. In the long run, it pays off. Every time I go to the dealer, I feel like I'm being rolled. Their shop rate is $140 an hour, and they charge hours according to whatever works better for them. They charged an hour of labor to change the coils, when the cover was already off to do the camshaft sensor. Probably took 15 minutes tops. Not to mention that you pay the dealer's parts price (which may be higher than list) & sales tax. No going to your favorite internet parts supplier.