2000 Kia Misfire in Cylinder 1

[Amazonangel]

I have a 2000 Kia Sephia with approximately 63,000 miles on it. Yesterday I turned it on and went around the corner and it started to sputter and the check engine light came on. The car was still driveable but it hesitates big time and sputters a lot. A friend of mine changed the spark plugs trying to fix the problem but it did not help. We then took the car to Auto Zone and they hooked up their diagnostic machine to it and found that cylinder 1 is misfiring. Thinking that maybe it was a clogged fuel injector we put some STP fule injector cleaner in the tank and ran it for quite a while. This didn't help. We then checked the pressure to make sure it wasn't something really icky like a blown head gasket. The pressure was fine. Then we switched the ignition coil packs around and had the car tested again. Still cylinder 1. We're now down to replacing the fuel filter to see if that helps. has anyone else experienced this or does anyone have an idea what could be causing it???

[jezuzfreek]

i am having same troubel ......... did you ever figure it out i need help too plz!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Amazonangel]

Originally Posted by jezuzfreek

i am having same troubel ......... did you ever figure it out i need help too plz!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It turned out that the problem was actually that the spark plug wires had gone bad. The sephia is a coil on plug system with two coil packs and then two other plug looking coils that go over the other two spark plugs. I lucked out and it was one of the plug coils that was bad. They only sell those in sets of 2 so I had to replace both at once, but that was only about $30. The 2 coil packs cost about $75 a piece. The only way I figured this out was by process of elimination. We replaced the spark plugs and then checked the voltage and finally decided to try the plug wires. I also took the car down to autozone and they plugged a diagnostic computer into it. This did two things, it reset the check engine light (which of course came back on) and told me that I had a misfire in cylinder 3. Hope this helps you.

[MeettheCreeper]

Originally Posted by Amazonangel

I have a 2000 Kia Sephia with approximately 63,000 miles on it. Yesterday I turned it on and went around the corner and it started to sputter and the check engine light came on. The car was still driveable but it hesitates big time and sputters a lot. A friend of mine changed the spark plugs trying to fix the problem but it did not help. We then took the car to Auto Zone and they hooked up their diagnostic machine to it and found that cylinder 1 is misfiring. Thinking that maybe it was a clogged fuel injector we put some STP fule injector cleaner in the tank and ran it for quite a while. This didn't help. We then checked the pressure to make sure it wasn't something really icky like a blown head gasket. The pressure was fine. Then we switched the ignition coil packs around and had the car tested again. Still cylinder 1. We're now down to replacing the fuel filter to see if that helps. has anyone else experienced this or does anyone have an idea what could be causing it???

Look at the ignition wires when you remove them. Near the base it may look like lightning strikes on the wires, if so the wires are bad. New factory replacements are a better design and last longer.

[tdthomas117]

I have a 98 Kia Sephia and the Check Engine light has been on for some time now, and the car hesitates off & on. Weather doesn't really cause the hesistation to change...but accelerating and slowing down too quickly causes the light to flash and the hesitation to be worse.

I have had several people look at the problem an all they could find is that one of the spark plugs needed to be replaced, but nothing else showed up when put on the machine. The second time I went back, the spark plug showed up as a problem again...so this time they replaced them with a higher quality spark plug. Same problem still.

Any thougths on what might be causing this???

[Amazonangel]

Try the spark plug wires. This sounds so much like what was happening to me. I changed the spark plugs, fuel pump, everything and finally it was the wires. That model kia is like mine and uses the coil on plug system I believe. You need to figure out if the coil over the plug that's going bad is a coil pack (there are two which are stand alone and fairly large) or if it's the smaller ones. If it's the smaller coils then they are sold in sets of two as (if I remember correctly) they attach to each other and are about $40 for the pair. The coil packs are available from the dealership for around $75 each usually. Hope this helps.