Fault Code 16684

[kapowww]

Driving home today I suddenly lost power and the car sounded like a truck. Exhaust note was really low, a bit of water leaking out of it, low idle. Thought I had a leak in the air intake or something so drove home carefully and did a VCDS scan and it turned out I had the fault code:

16684 - Random/Multiple Cylinder Misfire Detected
P0300 - 001 - Upper Limit Exceeded

So I checked the air intakes and the duct seem to be loose on both sides from the air filter to the throttle body (?). After tightening them both back up I cleared the codes and the problem was still there. After driving around the block a couple of times no fault codes came back, but the car still feels the same!

Could it be a coil pack or something? Also I just checked the codes the other day and it was all clear, so these codes would have definitely been from today's problem, so why would the fault code not reappear if the problem's still there?

P.S. I don't know if it's normal but I can hear some air intake suction each time I press the accelerator and I just have a stock airbox.

[Stan]

apart from the vcds code it almost seems like a leak in the head gasket....

keep an eye on your coolant levels and temps

[leighaus]

loss of power and low exhaust note, sounds like it could be a collapsed cat.

[Peter Jones]

My Bora threw the misfire code when a coil pack died.

I have some old working ones if you want one to test with.

[Bora Sport]

I had the exact fault code wording (can't remember the numbers) on my Bora and it turned out to be the MAF.

[Coralon]

To see if its a coil and I believe your misfire is on cylinder 1 from the code move the coil to another cylinder and see if the misfire moves with it. Also have spare coils to help test if needed in the northern suburbs.

[kapowww]

Collapsed cat and head gasket leak sound scary..

Well I drove my car to the dealer this morning (different issue) and when I got there I did a scan and this time it had the same fault code along with saying Cylinder 4 [16688] was misfiring. I actually got this fault code the first time as well but I accidentally opened the Shareware version of VCDS and it gave me 16688 - Shareware Version so I didn't bother looking it up and only realised it refers to cylinder 4 as well.

I'll probably take someone's offer on using an old coil pack to test..

What confuses me is that since it's only the one cylinder throwing the fault code it makes me think it's a coil or something for that cylinder. If it was different cylinders throwing the codes then I'd think MAF or fuel pump, etc.. But I'd think that each time I'd turn the engine on/drive it'd throw the code, not just intermittently. Guess I haven't driven enough to notice a pattern.

Also when the engine is idling I can hear a periodic whoosh of air every couple of seconds.. Air/fuel mixture not getting ignited in one cylinder or wishful thinking?

[kapowww]

Replaced coil pack 4 with a working one and it's now fixed! Now I'll go and buy a whole new set.. Seems like $180 delivered for a set of 6 from ECS tuning is the best I can find at the moment. Anywhere else?

By the way thanks to Peter Jones for giving me a used coilpack and to Coralon for offering =] Very helpful people on this forum..

[grtuned]

If you have the BDE motor with individual coil packs replace them all if you can afford it. Same thing happened to mine one went replace it then a couple of days later another one went so I decided to replace all of them no problem since... Funny thing is once one plays up all seem to follow soon after!!!

[kapowww]

If you have the BDE motor with individual coil packs replace them all if you can afford it. Same thing happened to mine one went replace it then a couple of days later another one went so I decided to replace all of them no problem since... Funny thing is once one plays up all seem to follow soon after!!!

Yep I figured that would happen. I'll order them all soon.. It's just too bad this month I have two weddings to attend and one is my sister's, so there goes heaps of cash..