A few months ago we bought a used 2000 Mazda MPV van because we needed one. We sold our faithful Nissan Maxima, and joined the mini van life. With two kids and service day requiring a constant changing of car seats, we thought it would be the right thing to do. And for the most part I am a happy minivan consumer. Recently there has been a reoccurring problem with the van that was getting worse by the mile. It was the dreaded PO300 random miss fire! As it turns out, there can be a many different reason for an engine to randomly misfire. And for the most part it is impossible to diagnose beyond the fact that it has a random misfire problem. So I gathered my scattered wrenches and put them in a neat pile to begin the task of fixing this dreaded problem. It had gotten to the point that I was certain that the van would not make it home some day. It would most likely be on a rainy day, with frogs, or a complete an unexplainable eerie darkness to boot. I went to my favorite place to buy parts, O'reilly's, and bought some new spark plugs and ignition wires, or at least they were supposed to be. I came home and went to work on it so I could just get it done and over with. After being under the hood for less than 90 seconds, I knew I was not going to like working on this van. It turns out in order to change the spark plugs and ignition wires on the thing, one must remove the intake manifold so that you can access the plugs to do the job!
I started taking the manifold off, after I found out that many shops charge $400.00 to change the plugs. It took me longer to locate a 7 mm socket than to do most of the work. After a day or so, I did get it tore down and started removing the plugs. Before you do that, you must remove the ignition wires. They, of course, were stuck and required more than the usual force to remove them. They finally came off with some persuasion from a long handle screwdriver, and a small stick of dynamite. I noticed that the plugs did not look bad enough to be replaced, but I was going to anyway after going this far. I then began to wonder if the coil pack was bad. Maybe it was, maybe it was not. I was not going to chance it as it would again require taking off the intake to replace.
I called up O'reilly's and they had a cheapy one for $65.00 and a Borg Warner for a little over $90.00. I went with the Borg. I did not want to have to do this again in just 20,000 miles.
After putting the coil pack on, I noticed that they had sold me ignition wore boots, and not the complete wire set. So the next day I called and sourced a set from O'reilly's again. I went to town to exchange my boots for a complete set of wires. Just about the time he set them on the counter I realised I left my wallet at home on the work bench. I take it out while I am mechanicing as it seems to irritate me further. Now it was really irritating me that it was home! But after my credit for the parts I brought back I only lacked a little over $3.00 having enough. So the guy behind the counter gave me a discount that made it even and I got my wires.
This evening I got it all put back together. It ran like it should, smooth and no stumble. I drove it to town and filled up with gas and went through the car wash to clean it up for service tomorrow.
One thing that helped out allot was when I took the wires off of the engine, I took a video of where they all went with my cell phone. I replayed it when it came time to rewire the engine, and it saved me time and trouble.
While I was doing all of this mechanic stuff, I was also gathering and boiling sap for maple syrup. Which I need to go check on now.
Adios for now!
