Does This Coil Look Bad?

2006 Subaru Outback XT with 129K miles.  I'm chasing a misfire and currently replacing the plugs.  Found this.  Do I need new coils?

Thanks!

Bad coil, Bad Coil!

Does to me. They're pretty cheap at the Pick 'n Pull...

Yeah I’d be replacing that I’ve never seen one do that before but you can’t be doing good things to the field

No bueno.

I've seen coils do that and still seem to work fine, but I'd definitely consider it suspect. 

So this all relates to my CEL showing a cylinder #1 misfire.  Here's the cylinder #1 coil:

Cylinder #2 coil was just starting to separate.  Maybe there's some correlation between that #1 coil and the misfire cylinder #1, ya think?

Thanks for your help!!!

I've used my $8 inline coil tester sucessfully more than once. Pretty handy. 

DWNSHFT said:

So this all relates to my CEL showing a cylinder #1 misfire.  Here's the cylinder #1 coil:

 

 

Cylinder #2 coil was just starting to separate.  Maybe there's some correlation between that #1 coil and the misfire cylinder #1, ya think?

 

Thanks for your help!!!

exactly what the coils on my WRX looked like after 100k miles or so, and I was getting random misfires as well. I replaced them all with some no-name chinese made ones for dirt cheap off some auto parts site. They've worked fine for the last 70k miles. 

^Ive been on the internet for over 20 years and I still love this E36 M3.

So I switched the #1 and #3 coils.  #1 is the one that looked the worst.  Car is now running worse than it was, and is still throwing a misfire code on cylinder #1.  >sigh<  Four new coils will be here Saturday and I'll cross my fingers.

You may want to check your injector on #1.  I had an issue where the car would idle and rev fine then fall on it's face in gear under load.  After parts-swapping to no avail, (coil, ignitor, IAC, AAC, etc.) put an ohmmeter on the injectors and had one way out of spec.  Replaced it and all was good.  Sad thing, it was a "new" injector I bought off ebay. Replaced it with a good used one from the junkyard. 

In reply to 06HHR :

That is a good suggestion.  I want to try to switch around the injectors to see if I can get the misfire to move from cylinder #1.

freestyle said:

I've used my $8 inline coil tester sucessfully more than once. Pretty handy. 

Does your inline coil tester work on coil-on-plug coils?  The ones I'm seeing online look like they only work on traditional distributor-coil-plug wire-plug type systems.

Not speaking to it's function, but from a product design standpoint, it's bad.  Is that an OEM part?  They really need to do a better job of sealing those plates against moisture.

1988RedT2 said:

Not speaking to it's function, but from a product design standpoint, it's bad.  Is that an OEM part?  They really need to do a better job of sealing those plates against moisture.

OEM NGK coil.  Since it's a Subaru the coils are much closer to ground/water than most engines.  But I wouldn't expect much water to get them in any event.

Switched injectors 1 and 2.  Misfire still on cylinder 1.  Going to try to remove the alternator to get to the evap purge valve to test it.

Evap purge valve was not stuck open.  It might not be opening properly but it's not stuck open and I don't have the knowledge or tools to test it better.   I gave up and took it to the trusted mechanic.  Two mechanics there were both unaware that it has both an evap purge valve and a separate evap purge solenoid.

Mechanic swapped around spark plugs, coils and injectors but the misfire persists in cylinder 1.  13K miles ago compression was 140# with 5% leakdown in all cylinders.  Mechanic concluded the ECM is bad. I started a new thread about what to do next.