Q: Car is misfiring, oil in ignition coil & spark plug

asked by on August 15, 2016

My car started misfiring after accelerating quickly on the freeway the other day. The ignition coils tend to go out so I immediately bought a new one and intended to replace it. However, when I pulled out the old one, it was covered in oil. In fact 2 of them were. Of course the spark plugs were covered too. The most common cause I saw was that it could be the valve cover gasket, so I made an appt to get that replaced tomorrow and intend to replace the plugs and coil myself after that. However, I have two questions: 1 - do I need to do anything in particular other than soak up the oil that was in there and 2 - is there any other obvious damage that driving on this would cause or other parts I should replace as a result?

My car has 136000 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.

Spark Plugs Replacement $113.11 - $716.47 Get a Quote
Ignition Coil Replacement $132.12 - $587.62 Get a Quote

Soak up the oil in the hole and clean it out with brake cleaner. Then dry it before replacing the spark plugs and ignition coils. You should replace all 4 coils as a set with new plug wire boots and plugs. Be sure to do all of this after the valve cover gasket and spark plug hole seals are replaced.

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