Ok I've been doing a lot of searching on here and have pretty much come to the conclusion that I've got a blown coil pack but I dont have any ses lights coming on in my dash. so my question is...if a coil pack is blown, will a ses light always come on?

 

If ur coilpack is blown, your car would be running very rough. Sound of the engine would be familiar to a modded wr/sti. I dont think you have a blown cp from your description. And yes, CEL should firt flash a couple of times, then stay on until u replace it.

 

Describe how is your car acting

 

Hey, I think I need new coils too.
Does your car run with jerks or misfire?

My car runs with jerks, especially when starting from the light. I am trying to get new plugs and coils. Is it easy enough to change those by myself?

 

very simple process to swap coils and plugs. When removing the tab use a flathead and twist in the slot insert. if that makes any sense to u. look for a diy on coil packs and plugs on here or audizine.com great info on audizine with lots of pics. happy trails!

 

I had this problem as well. For some reason one of my coils went. I have an OBD II reader and swapped coils around and followed the codes to find out which one was bad. Your car will run rough when you step on the gas and it will shake a bit. Replaceing the coils is very each all of a 2 min job.

 

If your unsure if its the coilpacks.. start the car, and remove each coilpack one by one. if the pack is good the car should die when pulling it out. if the pack is bad.. the car will remain on and stay the same..

 

I'd agree that its your coilpacks as well my first one went when I changed the waterpump and thermostat (timing belt & tensioners while I was at it) and when I got it all back togerher it ran as if it were only running on three cyinders. Which in fact it was. But I second guessed my work and spent many hours trying to determine what I had done wrong. Did I blow the head gasket? Possibly even crack the block somehow? Getting it towed to a small time ripoff mechanic who told me it was the head gasket and wanted $1800 dollars to do the work at which point I drove the car back home ready to retire it for awhile so I could scrape up the dough to get the work done as an afterthought i pulled the spark plugs and 1 did not match the others as far as visual condition is concerned at which point I checked for spark, it was weak and then cycled my coils to see if it indeed was bad. It was. The next to happened the day I reinstalled my ecu after sending it out to upsolute(love it). Got ecu in let throttle body reconfigure get on the road make it about two miles and starts to run on three cylinders again. Pull on side of road (I've felt my car run like this before) and cycle the coils yep another dead one. Drive to dealership buy then install new coil runs great. Later that night starts to run on three go to dealership buy two more coils and runs great has for almost a month now(its starting to make me nervous). Long story short these oem coils fail and fail and fail and fail. When these ones start to go I'm going to upgrade and possibly do exhaust and stage 2 my ecu. Good Luck

 

Does a coil ever kinda-sorta go? My wife described blown coil symptoms on her A4 this morning.... but when she got out of work the car seems fine. From my experience they are blown or not. I plan to replace the 2 old ones that are original.. so they match the 2 newer replaced ones. But should I also be looking for another problem?

 

A coil is just a wound series of conductor coated in a varnish. If that varnish or connections on either end of that coil are weak there is the possibility that an intermittent connection problem can occur. Also also occurs in relays, speakers and other electrical devices prone to generate heat. You probably should rest easy as you have already replaced two of the originals. They were all manufactured to the same specs and installed at the same time also the coils on these cars are known for being crummy so it literally was only a matter of time. As far as what else to look for? First get yourself two new ignition coils, I'll gurantee that its money well spent and worries no more...