maxima repair question.....coils/misfire

[woofy]

so my car is having some problems.....its misfireing but im told due to the year or my car(97) it dosetn let you isolate the coil that is messed up,there fore making you replace each one till you find the bad one.......at 90+ bucks a coil + labor costs i cant afford that......is it really true you cant find out what one it is.........any help would be great

[MinisterofDOOM]

That's sort of accurate. But you won't need to buy all 6 coils to find out. The best way is to go around and disconnect each one (so that cylinder won't spark) and see which one does NOT affect how the engine runs. If you disconnect one and there is no change, that's probably the bad coil.

Another way would be to pull the plug from each cylinder, leave it attached to the coil, and hold it near a a grounded piece of metal and see if there's a spark. Be careful doing this, though: spark plug bites can hurt (since it's usually around 50,000 volts). As with above, if you find one that's not sparking, you've found your bad coil.

[maxhopper]

Is your check engine light on? If you can operate an allen wrench and a screw driver, you can do the labor yourself.

[Beancooker]

When buying new coils, make sure they have a gray dot on top. Nissan has an old and new coil, the new have the gray dot and last much longer.

[Death Wish]

Have the same problem in my car. I replaced the coil and it still didnt work. So now i think the timing chain is loose. As for the coil, I went to a auto salvage yard and paid $20.

[maxhopper]

I would venture to say that something else is your problem (either bad plug, bad coil, or bad injector). If you have a VQ, the chances of having a problem with the timing chain are slim and none.

Make sure you use NGK plugs, they are the OEM replacements.