So. I had a coil go out at about 95K miles. No big deal, replace coil, all is well. Well within a couple thousand miles another...then another...then another... Never the same one, just each factory one failing within about a 10k mile timeframe. I figure, at this mileage, big deal, new coils. WELL, within about 5-8k miles of replacing them with coils bought from PelicanParts, I had one die on me. So I reviewed the product saying it failed after 5-8K miles and to avoid it. Pelican's response got me thinking.

What they said was "we've sold 505 of these and have no other reports of failures, yours failed in a very short time, it might be the coil drivers in your ecu". Now at first, I'm thinking there is no way it's a bad coil driver that just HAPPENED to blow the stock ones 1 by 1 but never one of the replacements until they had ALL been replaced, but the other half of me wil give them the benefit of at least looking into it.

Has anyone else had similar issues? Just seems odd that I never had a failure on the same cyl in a row until all were replaced, so it's hard to think it's an ECU issue and not just a coincidental bum coil from Pelican.

 

On a non mini...the wife's Toyota highlander, I had 3 aftermarket chinese made coils (standard auto for 2, and one dura-brand) all fail within 8,000 miles...the OEM ones went 190,000+....bought deso, the OEM makers coils, and no issues..reply I got from standard auto was coils are scourced as needed from various makers... And now many are made in Poland for the Toyotas mostly (think they realized the made in China parts were junk..)..... But my experience with aftermarket coils...JUNK...PURE PRICEPOINT PRODUCT ..
Sad thing...the denso coils were $2 more each from rockauto than the no name copies, but had to wait 3 days for shipping....others were local auto parts store units that said they could get the OEM in 24 he's for 2x the price...
Question...did you change the spark plugs, it is considered a good idea to replace them if a coil fails.

 

What gets me is Pelican lists "Bremi" as an OEM supplier and that's the brand I bought from them. Again, I don't see how, if it were an ECU issue why all 4 DIFFERENT coils went before I ever had a cylinder repeat the issue, yet Pelican instead of letting my review be, or saying "hey sorry, that's unacceptable, can we help?" they just blamed the car...

 

And I guess the real burn in my *** is that the aftermarket brand I get from CarQuest will be an easy warranty swap if it dies within a year, whereas the German car specialist site like Pelican Parts is just like "it can't be the part becaose 504 people didn't write a review like yours"

 

Did Pelican offer to replace it? Was their tone more of a helpful trouble shooting point of view?

 

Never heard of a coil driver before, it's more likely the coils. Unusual consistency of coils going bad one after the other, it is this reason why I say it's the coils. I'm sure there's something that supplies the coils with electricity but this would be a rare issue with a coil driver, never heard of that before. This would be the first for me.

Sometimes bad defective coils group together rather than just here and there.

 

Since I'm about to turn 97k miles, I'd like to know too! Hopefully I won't need any coils soon, but you never know.

 

They did. So far they definitely came through. Though the beginning of the contact between us seemed to have a "Our part couldn't have gone bad because other people have never said so" to offering a refund if I send in the bum coil. So, so far all seems well.

 

What were your symptoms of a bad coil? How did you know they were failing? I ask because I fear I have such an issue.