Polo misfire/rough running

[snappa]

Hi

I have a Polo 1.2 petrol and went on a drive today. Later on I had the engine idling from cold for 5 minutes or so and it was fine.
It then developed a rough misfire and loss of power and seemed to be drinking more fuel on the run home.

Any ideas of simple things for me to check please?
I pulled the air cleaner housing off to see if there were any obvious loose connections/air pipes but it was geting dark and nothing obvious.

Any help gratefully received!

[towcestervag]

get a diag done but possibly coils

[POLO12]

Same on my 2003 1.2 recently 1 mile from home started running roughly, got it home emissions light flashing, removed all 3 plugs turned over to see one not sparking turned out to be coil pack (£30) . Then had emissions ligt on I guess from the unburned fuel but this went off after about 10 miles driving. Apparently it quite common.

[snappa]

Both spot on. Coil on no 3 cylinder gone.

My garage advised me to change all 3 coils at the same time, as changing one can set off the rermaining ones to fail.
Is this true ?

[POLO12]

I would be interested to know if this is the case as I only replaced one, don't really want to spend another £60 doing the others if not required.

[Richard L]

I've got the same problem with my 2002 1.2 3cylinder Polo, started to misfire. I took it to local garage who plugged it in and said it was missing on cylinder 3, I changed all plugs and fitted a new coil to cylinder 3, worked for a week then went again, I bought a further coil fitted it to No 1 cylinder, that worked again for just over a week and misfier started again. Third and final new coil fitted, total parts cost of £90 from vw, worked for couple of weeks thought i had finally cracked it, but started to misfire again this morning, i'm now at a loss what to try next !
When the car was about 1 yr old it misfired in a similar way, all 3 coils were changed by mobile vw mechanic under warranty and that has kept the car running well until this pesent problem.

[hwar84]

I had a similar problem last year with my 1.2 2002 model. First replaced one coil ( £20 but not from main dealer) then a few weeks later another failed. Decided at that time to buy another 2 to complete the set (this time from main dealer, about £30 each), and keeping the "good" old coil as a spare, a good thing - see later. However the 1st coil I bought from an agent recently failed just outside the 12 months guarantee period. Car is now running with the 2 VW supplied coils and the last old still working one.