Davsurfa
Torque Junkie
So I'm driving back from the monthly shopping to trip and the car starts to cough
All I can think is what's wrong now?? As I try to accelerate the cough descends in to a mis-fire. To say I was unimpressed doesn't even get close:mrgreen: Anyways, when I stopped at a junction I thought to myself 'Maybe it's a bit of crap in the injectors' so whilst sat still in neutral I plant my right foot, the tacho needle screams in the red line without any effort or hesitations. Being a rather "fresh" night, and I figured a slow journey home, I put the heater on. There was an odd electrical burning smell so my first thought was 'Coils!!!' Atleast it'd explain the mis-fire. So first thing this morning I call the good Doc at RSD, the journey to work was driven on 3 cylinders. Come dinnertime I drop the car in there and left them to it.
At 5 o'clock this evening I collected the car, firing on all 4, no burning smells, problem solved
The coils, leads, plug caps all in perfect working order. The plugs on the otherhand were a little worse for wear. Well, cylinder 2 and 4 plugs were lightly brown and looking good but the plugs in cylinders 1 and 3 were erm.... how can I put this technically... erm.... buggered beyond belief is the best phrase that comes to mind. Here are some pics to show you the state of them.
Plug one:
Plug three:
Now for the question, why and how did my plugs end up like this? What would of caused this? The plugs(all 4) were dry not oily at all. The side electrodes have huge carbon deposits. The ceramic around the centre electrodes has bubbled and melted. The ceramic at the other end is slightly yellowing.
So far I've been told that I'm driving it too hard(It rarely sees the redline), driving it too soft(I live a mile and a half from work and in the recent cold spell the car wasn't getting chance to get off choke), using the wrong fuel, I use unleaded but I should use super unleaded(I thought super unleaded was for sportier cars like scoobs, evos, S3s and the like, not a 1.6 A3), or that I should use octane boosters like redex or NoS additives, again I thought those were for sportier cars than mine.
If anyone could shed some light on the cause I'd appreciate it!! Cheers in advance.
At 5 o'clock this evening I collected the car, firing on all 4, no burning smells, problem solved
The coils, leads, plug caps all in perfect working order. The plugs on the otherhand were a little worse for wear. Well, cylinder 2 and 4 plugs were lightly brown and looking good but the plugs in cylinders 1 and 3 were erm.... how can I put this technically... erm.... buggered beyond belief is the best phrase that comes to mind. Here are some pics to show you the state of them.
Plug one:
![21012010105.jpg](/forums/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi606.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ftt148%2FDavSurfa%2F21012010105.jpg&hash=a513aa3f0c82bb8ebed59d2a71139815)
![21012010111.jpg](/forums/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi606.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ftt148%2FDavSurfa%2F21012010111.jpg&hash=8fd47533c73a41bdd192d28b19f62360)
Plug three:
![21012010105.jpg](/forums/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi606.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ftt148%2FDavSurfa%2F21012010105.jpg&hash=a513aa3f0c82bb8ebed59d2a71139815)
![21012010112.jpg](/forums/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi606.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ftt148%2FDavSurfa%2F21012010112.jpg&hash=00699c80b71747abd0ec1c9c58a47d5c)
Now for the question, why and how did my plugs end up like this? What would of caused this? The plugs(all 4) were dry not oily at all. The side electrodes have huge carbon deposits. The ceramic around the centre electrodes has bubbled and melted. The ceramic at the other end is slightly yellowing.
So far I've been told that I'm driving it too hard(It rarely sees the redline), driving it too soft(I live a mile and a half from work and in the recent cold spell the car wasn't getting chance to get off choke), using the wrong fuel, I use unleaded but I should use super unleaded(I thought super unleaded was for sportier cars like scoobs, evos, S3s and the like, not a 1.6 A3), or that I should use octane boosters like redex or NoS additives, again I thought those were for sportier cars than mine.
If anyone could shed some light on the cause I'd appreciate it!! Cheers in advance.