P0303. I Know Its A Misfire On Cylinder 3.

[waqar_lionheart]

Hi All,

sorry to disturb but got a little query about this misfire.

I started my car up the other day and it started vibrating quite badly and check engine light started flashing. I expected a misfire and sure enough when I read the code it said to fault codes. one is p0303 and other one is "p0303 p". This is with my trusty obdII scanner. My first question is what is "p0303 p" and below is a list of things i have tried.

Just to let you know my car burns oil like its petrol. 500 - 600miles/litre of engine oil.

1. I have changed the spark plug in cylinder 3. Nothing changed same error codes and badly lumpy engine.

2. Thought it might be the coil pack, so swapped it over with cylinder 4. Nothing changed and Error code didnt change in the engine.

Things I suspect.

1. Burnt exhaust valve (how do i check that)

2. Loss of compression with a busted ring or piston (how do i check this)

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Waqar

[Konrad C]

Hi Waqar,

The compression test will pick up both the burnt valve and the piston ring.

Another problem which can be checked, is if the connected and wiring to the coil pack is broken. What this means it that no current is reaching the coil pack. To test this, remove the offending coil pack from the spark plug, get a spare spark plug and plug into the coil pack, making sure the spark plug is grounded on the engine top. Now start the engine to see if it sparks. If no spark then you have a problem on the electrical side. Otherwise on to the engine itself.

Faulty fuel injector? When you removed the spark plug was it wet? If it is dry then no fuel is getting to cylinder number 3. I remember watching Wheeler Dealers where Ed China did a fuel injector test by removing the injector and placing into a bottle to observe the flow. I would not do this because you have petrol which is more flammable than the diesel he was fixing. What about swapping injector positions? Safer way to see what happens. He traced it to a broken wire to the injector.

I would look at the easier jobs before worrying about major engine work. Make sure the seals are okay. I remember you changing the seals before.

Konrad

[waqar_lionheart]

Ok Konrad, Good tips as ever. To be honest, spark plug was bone dry. Like dry dry. So I guess thats' one thing left to check. I do hope that its not a compression problem.

I hope its not a compression issue as it is very rare for a piston ring to just go kaput. It would start to go slowly and leave carbon deposits on the spark plug from all the burning done in the process of scratching the cylinder bore (writing from an oil burners perspective).

I have a few spare injectors lying around somewhere, i ll get one of these to fit in. Hopefully that ll solve it. I much rather do the injector bottle test and spark plug test with someone experienced by my side and as dont wanna get the Mrs involved in a potentially dangerous situation.

I ll obviously be changing the injector when its not so cold and its not so dark.

Regards,

Waqar

[waqar_lionheart]

ok so just a quick update on this. 

 

Yesterday I changed the Battery after waiting a couple of weeks for some day light after work. After I had changed the Battery I decided to check out misfire issue before I send it to car abattoir. I started the car after replacing the Battery and it started in its crazy way with three cylinders and flashing check engine light. Then i smelt petrol and I looked under the hood to find out that the whole front of the engine was flooded with petrol. I could then hear the "slurping" noise coming from the injectors and to my horror, injector 4 was just letting out fuel every where. I quickly turned the engine off and had to take the rail and all the injectors out. To my horror, injector 4 seal o-ring that goes in the fuel rail was totally mangled and had become seriously bad oval shape. which meant it wasnt sitting properly and let all the fuel out. Then I thought well now I have flooded the cylinders as well and I doubt my car is going to start. Afterwards when i took the injector out of course due to pressure, the fuel just started pouring out of the fuel rail. I got my spare injector from the boot and then replaced the 4th injector. Then dried the front well of the block, restarted the car no fuel leakage. good, but no difference. still wobbly and mad.

Then I thought one last try and got my OBDII reader out. Cleared out all the codes and restarted the car, to my joy, misfire had to move from cylinder 3 to cylinder 4. This was great news as I posted in the forum that I had swapped coil pack 3 with 4. (my original misfire was on cylinder 3). Then I went to double check this by taking power supply clip for each injector off and found that 1,2,3 when disconnected make a difference to the engine running where as 4 doesnt do anything but it cant be the injector coz I have seen it squirting fuel every where.

My conclusion, its definitely the coil pack. Original diagnosis might have been hindered by battery being all messed up. it was amazingly low.

I have ordered a used coilpack from eBay for 13.50 with a 3 months guarantee. Who knows my beastie might not need to go to car abattoir and it ll find home with another loving and caring person.

Regards,

Waqar 

[Konrad C]

Well done Waqar,

 

[fastbob72]

My old girl is destined for the abattoir for sure so being fed up with the wee Yaris I checked out Autotrader at the back end of August just passed. I had a week off but was at a loose end because I could no longer fool myself that the Avensis was repairable by me. The corrosion had gone through the outer and inner sill on the driver side all the way to  where the trailing arm mounting sits on that side. I could weld the inner and outer successfully but the whole area surrounding the rear arm mounting point whilst ensuring the suspension geometry was exactly as it should be was a stretch.

Anyway, just for the sake of making myself feel better more than anything else I looked online to see if any good T22s were for sale. I wasn't so surprised to find several tired, high milers for less than a grand as well as some better ones between 1200 to the 1800 quid range. I was absolutely delighted the 2 nicest were CDXs that were NOT silver. All the silver ones were auto which I just would even consider. I drive automatic diesels most days so no automatics or diesels for me. I was about to write no oil burners then realised I'm still running a ZZ engine so the irony isn't lost 😊😊

Anyway two candidates were left both 2002 1ZZ vvt-is and CDX models with leather interiors. One a mossy green colour tje other a darker brownish grey in the photos. One Birmingham, one Bradford so a good 350 to 450 mile one way trip. The Bradford one was cheaper, looked pristine in the multitude of photos, nearly 100 I believe. Under the bonnet it looked even cleaner, medical facility level clean and I’m not talking NHS here 🙂  In every way it was the better choice yet it was to Brum I departed. I clocked some rusty patches, well colouration truthfully in the rear arches wnen zooming in although the resolution wasn't good enough to see exactly what was going on but my beloved T22 of the past however many years has just been laid low by rusty rear arches and the rest. Am not going down that path again so soon.

The one I bought is more a well kept survivor rather than the show stopper the other appeared to be on the surface. I may well have made the wrong choice  based on what looks like corrosion within the rear arches in a couple of zoomed in low res photos but I figured if the car I chose turned out to be a total lemon I'd just hop on a Megabus back north via Bradford.

 

If nothing else I'd have been back homewards i.e England and the south for a few days instead of counting off each day at home until I had to go back to work. As, it happens the car was nice enough to make an offer on although the friday of the august bank holiday was the worst bloody time possible to hit the M6 north.  I left around 11ish and had got as far as Lancaster after 7 damn hours. I thought I'd seen more caravan and campers locking up the road network, such as it is over the West Coast this summer, never before have tbe sheer volume of tourists hit the Western edge of the Highlands in such a mass as we've seen this year. To the point they've been turned away from everh possible campsite in the region, every layby, dirt track, opening for a gate into a field, every forrestry commision track and many passing places have been crammed with campers since the middle of may.

The police had to move on tourist who were just parking up wherever they thought they could get away with, maybe the country is going to the dogs at the moment but business owners on tne West Coast have been coining it in beyond their wildest dreams this summer 🙂  Anyway, I hit the caravan and mobile home exodus at it's savage peak during that drive. I even got the point where I decided that thd next services I saw I'd pull in, park up and wait out the insane traffic until I saw the que into the services all the way down the slip road to the motorway itself. I spent the first 200 odd miles lucky to hit 25 mph or get past 3rd gear yet the new T22 didn’t miss a beat or put a wheel wrong.

 

Then after 4 weeks or so now I had tnis flashing checklight and a P0300 or a P0303 fault code appear. I'm in the process of investigating the issue now,. In fact, I just stopped prior to typing this for some cheese on toast and a mug of teaso thought hey I'll check out the forum and see if anyone else has had this happen etc, etc.

That's what brought me to this post. Unfortunately, my Battery is in fine health, there is no fuel smell or the like and rather worryingly 1,2 and 4 plug seem very white to me more so than I'd expect but plug 3 is black, oily and carbon deposits are actually built up between the tip and electrode. Next thing to test iswhether that's a symptom or part of the problem because living 30 plus miles from work I had to drive the car as it missed and spluttered its way home which would not have made the situation any better.

I need to dig out my compression tester and hopefully rule out any valve, ring or cylinder issues. That's the crux ultimately. Worst comes to worst I've got an engine lift and my old 200,000 mile plus motor in the drive. Yes that's high but in the 6 or 7 years I ran that car daily it never missed a beat nor threw up a fault code except due to the dodgy wiring to the rear O2 sensor. Any motor that can top 200,000 miles,start straight away day in and day out and pass the emissions test each MOT with flyimg colours is a solid strong motor that's proven it's worth whilst the newcomer haz reached that tricky 130,000 mile mark where it's hard to tell right now whether it's got what it takes to go the distance or is it downhill from here on. If it is then I have a replacement engine on hand. In fact the coil packs and plugs, PCV valve and possibly rocker cover from the old girl are going on it later, possibly the injectors too.

It's never simple is it lol. Well, it would have been if I kept pottering about in the Yaris rather than going out to find a replacement T22 so I've only mysrlf to blame..... as per bloody usual 😉😉

 

 

[fastbob72]

The first 2 pics are the one I did not buy and the following three are the one I did. I won't be offended if on seeing these anyone says I'm a fool for the choice I made but there was just something about the look inside those arches of the first car that didn't sit well with me although I admit it does look nicer overall than the one I bought. Especially when what you don't see here is the cracked and lifting layer of laquer on the rear spolier or the minute dents and tiny creases like on the passenger side A pillar, not enough to have any effect on the strength or rigidity of the Shell thank F lol.

Anyway, that's my new T22 and now my 3rd successive mark 1 Avensis. Even my oldest mates ask me why after a lifetime of Fords and Vauxhalls am I so into these Toyota Avenses (is that the plural or just simply Avensis's lol, it's a little like is it bigfoots or bigfeet though like sheep the plural must be bigfoot whether singular or plural. That doesn't sound right with multiple Toyota Avensis's 😝👌). I can't rightly answer that question myself let alone explain it to bikers and wannabe car heads so it just is what it is. I've never been one to take advice or the sensible path and it looks like that's never going to change, at least I admit I'm a bloody minded idiot and my mistakes are all my verh own 😊😊😊

 

Here's the photos