2008 BMW 128i Ignition Coil Diagnosis Repair

Bernie Pawlik
http://pawlikautomotive.com (604) 327-7112

Mark: Hi, it’s Mark from Top Local, we’re here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver. Vancouver’s highest rated and 17 time winners of Best Auto Repair in Vancouver. How’re you doing Bernie?

Bernie: I’m doing very well this morning.

Mark: We’re going to talk about a 2008 BMW 128i that had some ignition coil problem. What was going on there?

Bernie: So this vehicle came to our shop, was running rough and the check engine light was on.

Mark: So what did your diagnosis find?

Bernie: What we found was, so we connected the scan tool and we found there was several codes stored for engine misfires, did some further diagnosis and we found two ignition coils that were dead. Typically when this happens, we normally replace all six, there are six of them and if one dies or two dies, usually the others are not too far behind, that’s what our experience has found with these cars. In the past, we’ve done one or two and then found the customer may often come back in a couple months with another dead coil. So it just kind of makes sense to change them all.

Mark: So are ignition coil failures common on these cars?

Bernie: They are actually, we do quite a number of them and yeah, so this is a pretty common issue. That and a lot of German cars, it seems like Audi as well, Audis and Volkswagens, the coils fail. Fortunately they are not overly expensive parts, so to change six of them, or four or eight depending on how many your engine has are not hugely expensive. But it is pretty common on these BMW’s.

Mark: Was there anything else that you repaired on your service while doing this job?

Bernie: Well we did the spark plugs as well, this vehicle had enough kilometres on it that the spark plugs were nearly at the age that they need to be replaced. It’s not a lot of extra work once the ignition coils are out to change the spark plugs. So that makes a lot of sense. We also changed another part, when we’re doing ignition coils, we noticed there was an oil leak, a small oil leak from a part called a Valvetronic Motor Gasket. So we replaced that as well, it was right in the vicinity, a little extra work but not a lot when we’re doing the ignition coils. So I’m just going to share a couple pictures while we’re here - so how does that look, can you see the picture of the gasket? Here is our BMW, a nice little 128, it’s a small compact BMW. There is a view of the ignition coil, as I said there are six of these parts and that’s what one of them looks like. Spark plugs, which is a sample of a couple of the old spark plugs that we replaced, and this is our Valvetronic motor gasket. If you look at the bottom on the picture you can see there’s a sort of oily film, that’s where the leak was coming from....