2 of 6 coils are bad

[jeneum]

I took my 99 intrepid in ti get looked at, the guy told me that 2 of the 6 coils are bad, when i told him I would fix it myself he forgot the 2 that where bad. How can I tell the 2 that are bad with out replacing all 6?
~Thanks

[hundahunta]

if the coils are bad more than likely the check engine light will come on.. If the light is on read what cylinders... Another way would be to remove all coils and check resistance of each one.. or you could perform a power balance test....

[jeneum]

How can you tell what cylinders, is there a way to read the codes with out a computer? Also what is a power balance test. Sorry to sound like I don't know anything its just cars after about 1980, with all the computers and stuff. Thanks agian.

[theFREAKnasty82]

unfortunately, you can not pull the codes yourself unless you have a scanner. A few questions I have: does the engine run poorly and misfire? Also what size do you have? Is it the 2.7 or 3.2? Well, it doesn't matter which because on the wiring schematic, it uses the same color wires. Anyway, what you can do to test which coils are bad is get a paper clip and a jumper wire. Put the paper clip in the Tan wire (the tan wire will have multi-colored tracers for each coil on each cylinder, eg, tan/pink; tan/light green; tan/light blue, etc.) Attach the jumper wire to a good engine or body ground. If the engine idle seems to improve, then you have sound your dead coil. If not, then repeat the procedure until you have found the bad coils.