I have a 08 FIT Sport, my car has a little over 60,000. I've only had the car for 2 years and I've replaced 5 ingnition coils. 5 ignition coils, 5!!!!
I made the mistake of paying the dealership to replace the 1st burnt coil, that cost me over $300. Plus a partial days pay! I replaced the rest of them myself.

I started reading the message boards and noticed that almost everyone has had to replace at least one on their FITs as well. It finally made me mad enough to do something about this pricy , frequent problem. I called HONDA America 800 999 1009, I bent their ear for a good half hour on the problem and requested that the ignition coils be covered at least under the "power train woranty" 7 years or 100,000 miles.
I'm begging you to do the same, please if you've had this problem, CALL Honda America 800 999 1009 and let them know. Request the same solution, let your voice be heard.
Maybe if enough of you show your concern something will get done. I'm sick of buying these damn coils.

 

Good post!

I only generate about 6K miles per year, and only have about 15K on my '09 Sport bought in late '08. However, I have followed all of the threads regarding this problem. The minute that I see any symptoms that might put my Fit in this category, I will replace all of the coil packs and the plugs at the same time. That's gonna take a lot of years for me, but I agree that this should not be a chronic problem with this car.

It seems to be only a built-in money-maker for the dealerships. Most of the mechanically adept people on the forums seem to be capable of doing their own repairs when the failing-coil-pack-stuttering problem shows itself, but what about the millions of fit owners who can't recognize the working end of a screwdriver and have never even visited a car forums site? Simply food for the dealership sharks.

Many car makers have had big losses in class action suits over inherent design flaws. Ford Motor Company has had its ass kicked over the gas tanks located behind the rear bumper of Police cruisers causing fatal fires in crashes, and the stupid placement of an ignition module on the side of the distributor on the German-built V-6 engines in the '80s vintage Bronco II's and small pickups. Engine heat would kill the modules over time, and abruptly stop the engine instantly. That killed a bunch of people.

It is strange how Honda deserves its reputation for reliability, that is except for the premature failure of Fit coil packs. Who cares if the plugs are supposed to last 100K if the coils fail at half of that?

Regardless, I will yell at Honda whenever this problem occurs to me (unless it gets fixed by corporate management before I experience the problem).

 

You mentioned the 80s Bronco 2 having the excessive heat killing the coils. Looking at my FIT motor I was thinking that might be the problem, the coils are directly above the exhaust manifold . I'm thinking there should be an additional heat shield to help deflect heat away from the coils.

 

AMEN!!!! Sawdust for president!!!!!!

 

You might be right about that for the Fit coils, but the ignition module in the Fords was not a coil. The ford module was mounted on the side of the distributor (that Fits don't have) that was positioned in a well molded into the firewall- the hottest place in the engine bay. Failure of that module would just stop the engine cold- on railroad tracks, on blind curves on a mountain road, on freeway on-ramps, imagine your own scenario. At least the Fit failures start with rough idle and stumbling under hard driving conditions. Three cylinders that still fire can get you out of a fatal situation. Absolutely dead ignition on all cylinders can't. Boom! Yer dead! Here come de train!

 

What are you experiencing that indicates that your ignition coil is bad?

 

While driving there are random moments of power loss wich feel like the car is lungeing or jerking. You will actually feel this while the car is stopped too. Sometimes at a stop the car will stall and will have to be restarted. If the car is driven long enough with this problem it will potentially damage the catalytic converter system. This is a factory only item and if damaged could cOst as little as $600. So if this is happening to your car, get it fixed before it causes related damage .

 

At one point I bought of set of beck arnley coil packs on ebay and it solved my stuttering problem for about 100 miles. Then one of the coil packs grounded through the side, black plastic body section of the part and created a visible pin hole. The perplexing thing is that it arced through the side instead of making it's way down to the plug. This tells me there's an inherent design problem with these packs. Either they're creating too much voltage or the materials used cannot stand off the voltage properly.

 

Crap! I should have kept my coils so I could check to see if this burn through was happening to me. Was there any visible damage to the engine block inside the coil hole ?

 

Having never seen this problem on a Fit, please take the following as an uneducated question and guessing.

First the question, Is this only a problem on 2008 and earlier Fits. I noticed that 2009 and later use a different part number and it is also used in the CRV.

I saw four different aftermarket vendors listed as making them for both the GD and GE Fits.

Now the comment. When GM had problem with their first High Energy Ignitions years ago they found that the spark jumping their specified .080" spark plug gap occasionally caused the spark to seek other paths. If the spark did not jump the gap then the energy was absorbed by the coil itself causing premature failure. Their fix was to change the spark plug gap to .060" from .080". Since that time dynamometer runs have proven the a gap of .035" runs just as well and increases ignition reliability to very close to 100 %.

I mention this because you are having multiple coil failures. You might want to reduce your plug gap or look at the possibility of a bad plug(s) causing your coil failures.

 

Yes, there is an associated burn mark on the inside cylinder wall of the spark plug bore where the arc occurred. It's a 1/16 of an inch carbon looking burn mark.

 

There have been some write-ups on this forums indicating the smaller spark gap resolves the stutter/hesitation problem, so you might be right.

 

I don't come on the forum very often; Love love love my fit but am not as mechanical as all of you. BUT was researching my latest in a series of expensive things lately on my 2007 fit, and thought I'd jump in in case it is helpful for someone. I recently have a new engine, but is running rough, and I was told today a coil (and more possibly later) is faulty and needs to be fixed asap. He mentioned that Honda has now moved to a different improved coil than in the 2007. . . . . . guess the old coils were up to par?

I'm told that I need to replace ASAP to prevent another engine problem (on the new used engine put in a few months ago) This is true, right? . Being a female, even one in science, I sometimes feel a little wary of being asked to fix things asap. . . . .

Thanks,
Kelly

 

I suspect it's true. Once a pack goes out it changes the vibration, the local temperature near the bad pack, etc
.. which I strongly believe affects adjacent packs. The failure is mechanical and all those parameters affects things mechanical. Replace all 4. Good luck.