Honda Jazz Engine/Drivetrain troubles

[HamAndPickle]

Hi All,

I've got a 2001-2008 Honda Jazz (Petrol 1.3l Auto CVT) with around 120,000 on the clock. A few months ago it started to feel a bit jerky when accelerating between 25-40mph when it was loaded or on an incline. A couple of days ago it seemed to get worse and the engine warning light came on. It seems to settle down when I get it up to about 60mph and seems to be ok at low speeds. The throttle response seems to be off and it doesn't rev up immediately.

I borrowed a friends ELM327 and got the following codes.

P0300 Random Misfire
P0301 No. 1 Cylinder Misfire
P0302 No. 2 Cylinder Misfire
P0303 No. 3 Cylinder Misfire
P0304 No. 4 Cylinder Misfire

I'm a complete novice with cars. Is this a relatively straightforward fix? Given the car is only worth a few hundred I don't really want to get into anything complex with fixing it!

Cheers in advance!

[GreenV8S]

Has it been serviced recently? A misfire under load is one of the symptoms of a weak spark, which might be resolved by a clean set of plugs.

[Athlon]

8 plugs in those engines! If the lead plug or coil goes bad this would be the result for sure, bit weird it is showing every cylinder though!

As said, stick a set of plugs in, clear the codes and see what happens.

[HamAndPickle]

Many thanks for your advice!

[Sheepshanks]

Athlon said:

8 plugs in those engines! If the lead plug or coil goes bad this would be the result for sure, bit weird it is showing every cylinder though!

Used to have one of these (a manual though) and I've seen comments in a Jazz forum that cheap code readers just show a generic code - it's basically just saying "misfire".

There's a ton of issues that can cause this but it's common the rear plugs don't get changed as they're awkward to get to and the rear coil packs fail.

Bit chicken and egg - you're just guessing without proper diagnosis and changing all the coil packs on the off chance ain't cheap. You can get used ones but you could be throwing good money after bad. And the underlying fault could be something else anyway.

[Yogioes]

Hi,
I had an 2003 model which had an irritating hesitation on light throttle.
It was caused by the EGR valve.
Honda dealer wanted to fit a new one.
I removed it and cleaned it out with carb / injector cleaner spray which sorted it.
I can't say if it was a long term fix as my son wrote it off in 2011.

[HamAndPickle]

For the benefit of any future readers - Garage changed all 8 spark plugs and it is now running much better.

Cheers!

[Sheepshanks]

Phew! Thanks for the follow-up.