Chevy Cobalt

A cylinder misfire is something that should be paid attention to immediately. When a car has four cylinders, the engine misfire can be any of them or even all 4 of them. All 4 cylinders misfiring could spell a huge problem for the vehicle and urgent attention is needed if you want to save the car from severe repairs. Even if just 1/4th of the engine’s power is reduced, you will find the effects of it in the way the car drives. The first thing that will happen will be vibrations in the engine, which make the whole car vibrate.

Naturally, a misfiring cylinder can lead the engine to stall or not start at all. The additional loads that the car carries such as headlights, cooling systems, music players, etc. could all take a toll on it. When all 4 cylinders begin misfiring, the problem becomes quite grave. You will find that the emissions of the vehicle also start deteriorating to dangerous conditions. These could start proving negative for emission tests. When the cylinders misfire, the basic chemical problem that occurs is that the fuel is not burnt completely, due to which a lot of hydrocarbons are released with the emissions, giving those negative emission tests.

There are many reasons that can cause a cylinder to misfire. The following are some of them:-
(i) Unhealthily low levels of compression in the cylinders
(ii) A wrong ratio of air and fuel which makes the ignition difficult
(iii) Malfunction of the spark plug due to wear and tear or some other problems
(iv) Faults in the spark plug wiring
(v) Excessive gas in the rotor
(vi) Weak coil

The last two are the main reasons for all 4 cylinders misfiring. With the other cases, only one cylinder may misfire.

One type of misfire is when the misfire happens and then stops happening abruptly, only to start again sometime later. This kind of a misfire is known as an intermittent misfire. This can happen with just one cylinder or with all four. The problem with this kind of misfiring is that you cannot properly assess where the problem lies. Such misfires happen mostly when the engine is not heated up properly. When you are starting the engine, the misfire happens but if you keep driving, the misfire subsides. In other cases, the cylinders don’t misfire at the start but as the load increases in the vehicle, they start misfiring. These kinds of misfires are very difficult to understand why they are happening and hence their solution becomes problematic too.

Nowadays, most cars have computer systems to run them and even diagnose their problems. Hence, understanding that a car is misfiring is simpler. Also, your job of explaining things to the mechanic is lessened because most cars store specific misfire codes in their computer systems. Depending on the number of the cylinder that has the problem, these codes are P-0301, P-0302, P-0303, P-0304 and so on, where the last digit is indicative of the number of the cylinder where the problem has occurred. If all 4 cylinders misfire, then the special code stored in the car’s computer system is P-0300.