I picked my car up yesterday after a service and on the way home it developed a very bad misfire under heavy acceleration. It seems fine if you accelerate progressively but as soon as you put the engine under heavy load it misfires like nobodies business. I had a look round the engine bay in the dark to look for any air pipes off or anything but couldnt see anything. The only thing I can think of is one of the plugs breaking down or been gapped incorrectly (think they should be 1.1mm on an MY96?) Appreciate any advice before I go back to the garagge to sort it out for me

Ta

Rich

 

Plug gaps should be .7
Sounds to me like you have a problem with a coil pack- they tend to play when they're a bit old if they've been disturbed

 

Rich,

I had a bad miss recently on mine m8.
Got it sorted at the weekend, it turned out there was a hairline crack on the ceramic of 1 of the plugs, this was causing the spark to arc outta the side

Pete

 

Check your oil just in case they've over-filled it and you've got some in the boost control thingymajiggy