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So I got my white 1993 Festiva about a month ago. It has about 138K miles on it. I mainly bought it for driving to and from work as my commute went from 5 miles one way to 25 miles one way, and 11mpg was not going to cut it. The car seemed to run ok but it has a few annoying things wrong with it. Once I got the chew spit wiped off the inside of the windshild, and wiped the grime from the steering wheel, shifter and dash, it was a bit nicer to drive. I had been commuting in it for about 2 weeks, and decided to do a timing belt (and pully and water pump) since I had no idea what it was last changed. The engine was all greasy so I picked up a can of Gunk and had planned on cleaning the engine over the weekend and changing the belt.
Well, last Thursday I was crusing around and the car just died on me. It would crank and crank, but would not run. I towed it to a friend's house and picked it up the next day with a trailer.
I first checked spark at the #4 and got nothing. I then checked it at the coil wire, and had nothing. I decided it was most likely an ignition problem at this point and not fuel like I had origionally thought. I ended up buying a Haynes manual from AutoZone, (They actually had one in stock). I tested the coil with an Ohm meter and it was within specifications. There was also battery voltage at the coil with the key on.
At this poing I was thinking ignition module or pickup coil. A new ignition module was about $50 or so, and in order to change the pickup coil, you have to replace the distributor, which is about $160. I decided to cross my fingers and replace plugs, wires, cap and rotor, since it was about $50 for these parts at AutoZone, and they needed to be done anyways. And it worked! the engine is alive again. I decided that it was a defective coil wire. It used to be that you could take a plug wire and put it in place of the coil wire and limp home with 1 cylinder down, but I dont thing that pumping raw fuel into the catalytic converter is a good idea. I probably would have done it anyways if I thought about it.
I still have slight surging durring acceleration, which I had before the car died, but I am hoping a new fuel and air filter fixes that problem. I will probably check ignition timing at the same time. And I can also get back to changing the timing belt.
I know that this post is kinda long, but I wanted to give some background on the car and hopefully this will help someone diagnose no start conditions in the future.
Well, last Thursday I was crusing around and the car just died on me. It would crank and crank, but would not run. I towed it to a friend's house and picked it up the next day with a trailer.
I first checked spark at the #4 and got nothing. I then checked it at the coil wire, and had nothing. I decided it was most likely an ignition problem at this point and not fuel like I had origionally thought. I ended up buying a Haynes manual from AutoZone, (They actually had one in stock). I tested the coil with an Ohm meter and it was within specifications. There was also battery voltage at the coil with the key on.
At this poing I was thinking ignition module or pickup coil. A new ignition module was about $50 or so, and in order to change the pickup coil, you have to replace the distributor, which is about $160. I decided to cross my fingers and replace plugs, wires, cap and rotor, since it was about $50 for these parts at AutoZone, and they needed to be done anyways. And it worked! the engine is alive again. I decided that it was a defective coil wire. It used to be that you could take a plug wire and put it in place of the coil wire and limp home with 1 cylinder down, but I dont thing that pumping raw fuel into the catalytic converter is a good idea. I probably would have done it anyways if I thought about it.
I still have slight surging durring acceleration, which I had before the car died, but I am hoping a new fuel and air filter fixes that problem. I will probably check ignition timing at the same time. And I can also get back to changing the timing belt.
I know that this post is kinda long, but I wanted to give some background on the car and hopefully this will help someone diagnose no start conditions in the future.
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