Morris Minor Owners Club

After a cold windy day at Weston Park the last thing I needed was a breakdown on the way home. So 20 miles from home an intermittent misfire soon became a full blown misfire, replaced the 18 month old coil with the spare and off I went. An unremarkable story apart from the fact this is the third coil that has failed in the last four years and they used to say its never the coil.

Just ordered a coil from Aldon Automotive at £58.00 expensive compared to others but comes highly recommended.

All I'm saying is it's not everyone who proclaimed "It's never the coil"! Glad you got it sorted - that's the main thing.

A sad and yet a happy tale as you had a spare and got home ok.

Perhaps modern coils are just poor quality? Certainly I wouldn't want one and keep a proper old stock spare as well as running a proper old one.

58 bullets for a coil sounds expensive, I'm sure that must be a good one.

Al

The vast minority wrote: Perhaps modern coils are just poor quality?
Al

When I spoke to one of the suppliers about one of their coils which had lasted 8 months on the car (12 months 2 weeks since purchase) he said at the price they were good value.

Not if you have to buy a new one every year was my reply.

He asked me to pay for a new one and return the old to see if he could get a refund from his supplier, a month later I contacted him to be told they had refused. So not only was I the cost of a coil down but also the postage cost for returning the old one.

Out of interest were you driving at high speeds? I've had 2 coils go because I've driven on motorways and the way it was secured, it must have vibrated or hit a resonance point and caused damage. I've had the current coil on mine attached to a stronger part of the engine bay, rather than on that little ledge, and that seems to have solved it. The other advice I was given was to vary one's speed on motorways, to avoid excessive vibrations at particular frequencies.

Forgive my terminology, I'm not an expert....

warb21 wrote:Out of interest were you driving at high speeds? I've had 2 coils go because I've driven on motorways and the way it was secured, it must have vibrated or hit a resonance point and caused damage. I've had the current coil on mine attached to a stronger part of the engine bay, rather than on that little ledge, and that seems to have solved it. The other advice I was given was to vary one's speed on motorways, to avoid excessive vibrations at particular frequencies.

Forgive my terminology, I'm not an expert....

Sounds a solid theory to me but I'm no expert in fact I'd probably be sat at the back of the class, however I had traveled on the M6 on the way down but came back via A roads so speed was varied.

My coil is mounted in the original position which I know has been blamed by some for contributing to coil failure on new coils. My argument is that the old stock coils don't appear to suffer the same failure, therefore the evidence I've seen points to poor quality. Just hope the old adage "buy cheap buy twice" proves true with the new one I have ordered as at £58.00 it can't be said to be cheap.

We all know that some modern coils are made in huts in far away places - the 'never the coil' statement only applies to good old original coils. Not modern trash. Also many of the coils sold now are for ballast Ignition - 9 volt coils. Run on 14 volts they obviously give great sparks -for a while.... And if the car is only used on short journeys - they may last well enough. On a long run - the heat builds up - and internal shorting takes over. So always check the coil has 3.2 ohms across the two terminals. Any less and it's intended for a ballast system. And don't be taken in by the 'Lucas' brand on anything these days.....

I've been told the rule of thumb is green lucas label equals new, orange label equals new old stock, not had an orange label lucas but if I see one I will be sure to grab it.

Roy makes a good point about ballasted and non ballasted coils, I think minis used both dependent on build date so it would be understandably easy to supply the wrong one for a mini. The coils I have purchased have been from various suppliers under different manufacturer names, all have been described as 'non ballast' direct replacements it would be more than a little frustrating if they in fact turned out not to be as described but frankly nothing would surprise me.

I had an old Bentley which had 2 coils fitted but only one in use. It seemed overkill at the time but not really a bad idea if you already carry a spare in the boot. If it is mounted suitably, whenever you have a suspect electrical fault it is just a matter of swapping wires to prove that it is never the coil (unless you are Leafie, of course, mounting a second coil under that bonnet would be sacrilege)!
John

If you look at old pictures of 'rally' cars they often had twin coils mounted - but only one wired of course. Modern cars' coils are so poor they fit 4, or 6 or 8 depending on cylinder quantity...

John Naylor wrote:I had an old Bentley which had 2 coils fitted but only one in use. It seemed overkill at the time but not really a bad idea if you already carry a spare in the boot. If it is mounted suitably, whenever you have a suspect electrical fault it is just a matter of swapping wires to prove that it is never the coil (unless you are Leafie, of course, mounting a second coil under that bonnet would be sacrilege)!
John

Following a (Lucas) coil dying on me, I now have a spare coil fitted in the engine bay of the Traveller, just in case...

leafie , you should try a accuspark sports coil 17 pounds and good qualiaty ive had one 2 years and no problem so far

Guess you get what you pay for...there's usually a reason why things are cheap. Value for money is different.

that just seems a lot of money for a coil the accuspark stuff is very good been using there stuff for a while now and very pleased with it too