You just gotta read this!

[Ronnie Hensley]

A little while back I posted for some help on a 2002 Montana. I had idle problems that no one could help me with. I started throwing parts at it and one of the first things I replaced was the Idle Control Valve. That didn’t help at all, so…after replacing wires, plugs, coil pack, TPS, and IAC , I was at my wits end. The problem with idle was intermittent and when I would shut the engine off and re-start, the idle would be fine…FOR A SHORT WHILE! Then the whol;e problem would start all over again! I was ready to junk this POS but one day, I thought…:NAWW…theres no way it could be a bad IAC valve. It brand NEW and it cost 50.00 bucks!” “That CAN”T be it!” WRONG!!!!So, luckily I had saved the old IAC valve and I took the new one out and put the old original back in! Runs like a BRAND NEW VAN!” Its going on 2 months and it is still running fine, and idles perfect!!!! Now, I ask…WTF>>>>>How can a new part be bad, and cause SO much heart ache and trouble? Well, I don’t know, but what a lesson I learned! Don’t ya just love it. Thanks for reading this. banana:

Topic

[dan]

this is a good example as of why you don’t throw parts at a problem you diagnose, another good example of why you don’t assume a new part can’t be the cause of the issue because it can, not too recently i got a cet of Accel super coils for my 2008 grand prix. a week later i start my car up and its bucking and kicking backing up out of the parking lot, on the way home it missed a few times coming out of a stop light and drove the rest of the way fine.

didn’t assume it was the ignition coils because each ignition coil is responsible for firing 2 cylinders so when one goes bad you USUALLY get two cylinders dead not just one… and it was missing very intermittently i was almost expecting fuel injector issues! well i took it for a drive the next day eventually the PCM picked up a dead miss on cylinder number 2, did some testing and found during a little test when i removed the wire from the terminal for cylinder 2 off the brand new accel coil no spark was emitted, typically when you remove the wire but have it not too far from the terminal the spark will jump from the terminal too the wire! (yes i was wearing gloves.)

a EXTREMELY rare failure accured, the center ignition coil which was responsible for i believe firing CYL 2 and 5 was not firing on cylinder 2 but was on cylinder 5 so guess what, putting on a stock AcDelco ignition coil fixed the issue and the car ran fine! got a replacement Accel super coil and the car ran good!

lesson learned from this experience, new parts CAN fail and in ways you wouldn’t expect, you may have learned this lesson too, as well as its a good idea too diagnose your issue before throwing parts at it, i could have thrown a new set of supercharged engine fuel injectors in my car and still had the same issue! but instead i did some diagnostics and poking around under the hood and found a new replacement part was the cause of my issue.

[Ingvar]

Unfortunately, MANY parts are sold in chain stores that are nothing but remanufactured. I learned to ask them, if it’s NEW or re-manned.
Even if it’s new, yes, it’s likely to be made in you know where, and you know what may happen.And there’s always simple bad luck.
Back in time there used to be Al’s Auto Supply store here, sort of Walmart of parts for people with little means. Their parts were plain junk. I had THREE, yes, THREE bad alternators out of box from them, same night. Fortunately, replacing it was a breeze on that car and I timed myself at 15 seconds on the last one.
And I still have complete NEW distributor for 96 Civic, sitting in my garage. That didn’t return car back to start, so we sold her as is, and new owner tossed a used one from junk yard on her and she fired right away. It’s life.

[Author]

Replies