Ignition coil hell

[jacobfranklin90]

Bought a 2000 LC in March of 2016. Had 120k on her. Since then I have gone through many repairs; both exhaust manifolds, catalytic converter replacements (In California its very expensive), new brake rotors and twice have had my ignition coils replaced. The truck has about 140k on her now. Check engine light came on Friday but the car was running regularly. Saturday I started her up and it felt the same way it has when I've needed to replace ignition coils.

Now I don't know jack all about engines and I don't pretend to, but I have to think that having ignition coils replaced twice in a year means that I'm not solving the real issue. I briefly talked to Gary at mudrak custom cruisers (Landcruiser guy in the northern bay area) and he says it could be an electrical spike in the alternator.

Has anyone had any issues like this before? If so, do you know how much it likely will cost to repair it?

 

[87warrior]

There are 8 ignition coils that can go bad. One per cylinder. Are you getting all 8 replaced at the same time or are you getting them replaced one at a time? What ignition coils are being installed? If anything other than Denso (OEM Toyota), I could see them failing rather quick. Previous owner of my Cruiser installed a Duralast coil to fix a CEL. Two weeks after buying the Cruiser I had to replace that coil due to CEL. Replaced it with Denso and haven't had a problem. About 9 months after buying my Cruiser another coil went bad and I replaced it with Denso as well. Two coils over 274k miles isn't poor mileage in my opinion.

 

[jLB]

My first question would be, did you replace all of the coils at one time? My second would be, did you use Toyota (or Denso) coils or some other brand?

 

[jacobfranklin90]

They were replaced at separate times. 5 the first time the other 3 the last time. I am not positive on the brand but when I type in the part number from my receipt it shows up as a Toyota part.

 

[jacobfranklin90]

Just spoke with the mechanic. The coils are all be under warranty so he will replace them for free if they are shot. Fingers crossed it was just a faulty coil.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

If the CEL is on you should be getting a code. Super rare for more than one coil pack to go out at a time.

 

[Muddy Bean]

I replaced my coils once and it didn't fix the misfire. Replaced the spark plugs and solved my issue. That was 3 years ago. Still running strong.