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My ride is a bone-stock 2002 IS with an auto transmission.
This happened on my commute home today. After giving the throttle some love on the highway, something felt off, so I stopped pushing the car. Good thing I did because I immediately noticed the car lumpily idling at around 200 rpm when I stopped at a coffee drivethrough. Engine had a very noticeable shudder.
Recently (the past couple of weeks), whenever I would accelerate hard with the car (pedal to the floor), there has been a slight burning smell that would go away after driving easier. This is usually when I take off from a stoplight or merging onto the highway. That made me a little nervous, but figured it was cause the car was old. At first I thought it might be the transmission going bad because it happened every time the car would rapidly shift through the gears, but not sure now with the code. My old Jeep XJ would misfire but only when the engine was overtemp.
Read swapping out the sparkplugs fixes the issue but wanted to confirm that here. Would bad plugs make that burning smell after accelerating hard?
The car is sitting in my garage now thankfully, so hopefully I can fix it there. Thanks for any info!
Usually when there is just one Misfire code, it indicates a faulty Spark Plug, or, more likely, a bad Coil, to verify it, try swapping Coil 2 with any other one you can reach, then see if the code will switch to a different cylinder, if so, you found your culprit.
As for the burning smell, it can literally be anything from bad catalyst to an actual fire hazard under your hood, check all the fluids (especially engine oil) and make sure that there are no stains on or around the exhaust, anything that can indicate something burning off. Other than that, more information will be needed for any further assistance.
P.S. To be perfectly honest, it seems like your car choice doesn't work quite well with your driving habits, I had to actually floor any of my cars only about a dozen times, mostly due to an emergency, like when a semi tried switching lanes into me. It would be beneficial to find a more suitable vehicle for the task if that's your preference, as those cars were never meant to go fast, and will not last under such strain.
As mentioned above, swap the 2 middle coils, reset the old code and test drive the car. If the code changes to P0303 or P0300 the coil is bad. If you see P0302 again, swap the spark plugs between the two middle cylinders. Same code means spark plugs are fine. Different code replace all.
If no coil or spark plug maybe a clogged fuel injector or a cracked intake but for this troubleshooting you will likely need a mechanic.
Your burning smell is probably from your catalytic converter being super heated by the large volume of unburned fuel that it was being fed. It will get hot enough to melt the material inside the first cat and that melted material will then plug the second cat. It doesn’t take much high speed driving to cause damage.
08-22-23, 02:30 PM
Cylinder 2 Misfire - Code P0302: Help please!
