Does the Autel AP200 tell you which cylinder is misfiring?
If you have a CEL due to misfires, any OBD reader will tell you which cylinder is involved. You should get P030x DTC, where x is the cylinder of concern. x can be also 0 in case of random/multiple misfires.
I've had a lot of luck using this TA500 to diagnose ignition issues. https://www.amazon.com/TA500-Smartach-Multisystem-Ignition-Analyzer/dp/B001TCWMGS It will tell you spark plug voltage levels as well as spark plug burn time. If you are trying to diagnose a misfiring cylinder, this will help a lot. Using an OBD2 reader is a good idea as well, although the TA500 is more of a direct hands on approach. Seeing the exact voltage level at the wire and/or spark plug is pretty handy. If you have a poor mixture in one cylinder, which is resulting in a less than ideal spark / combustion, it will usually manifest itself as a reduced kilovolt level at the plug. Ray Image Unavailable, Please Login
You're very welcome. It's a super handy tool to have around. I use it to dial in my chainsaws also. Ray
so if I measured all coils and they read x1, x2, x3-----x8 volt. what kind of deviation would lead me to think one particular coil is at fault? is that like reading compression numbers?
I've never used it to measure coil on plug, but I believe it does have a setting for that ignition system. You might be able to download the manual on line; it has a diagnostic sort of section in it that explains a bit. Basically you use it like this: While the motor is running, put the tip of the wand on the top of each coil and it should give you a voltage level reading in Kilovolts. Then you more or less just compare to see if all the readings are fairly consistent. So, for example, let's say all the coils show 18,000 volts roughly, but one is down around 2000 volts, then you know something is up. Also, it will give you the spark plug burn time in milliseconds. So same kind of deal: if all the spark plugs are burning at around 250 ms in duration, but one is showing something out of wack like 50 ms or 800 ms, then you know something has gone haywire some place. It helps you sniff out defective spark plugs and/or if there is a problem with the mixture inside the cylinder being off, as that can screw up the voltage levels typically. Ray
Ignition coils on these cars are starting to fail on the regular. I have gone through 3 sets just this month on customers cars with misfire issues. Start swapping stuff around and see if the problem follows.
