Spit and sputtering

New to the forum! My Tacoma started experiencing spit and sputter symptoms tonight.
I’ve owned the truck for 5yrs now and have babied the crap out of it. Bought with high miles,266k (I’m 2nd owner, lady before me was in sales) truck is very good shape, nothing major has ever been wrong with the truck. So I’ve put about 35k miles on it in 5 yrs and been religious about maintenance. One of the first things I done to the truck was replace all plugs and coil packs. Plugs were OEM NGK’s, coil packs - eBay aftermarket. About a yr intothe coil packs, had misfire code, put original back in and ran fine untilnow. I have a flashing CEL and nocode on my

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scan gauge. I’ve always ran seafoam In my tank at leastonce a mth. So I’m leaning towards coils being bad. I’m gonna pull out the non OEM coils and put theoriginals back in to see if that fixes my problem. Sorry for the long post, any suggestions welcomed! Thanks!

 

The flashing CEL could be an indication of severe miss firing. It is telling you (flashing) to stop before things break.

 

There is no reason to replace the coils that I know of, unless you have a known malfunction. The coils on these trucks seem to be bullet proof. I would also stick to OEM on this part. I'm interested to hear whether the swap fixes the problem.

 

Flea Bay coils - no telling what you were sold. Get rid of them.

 

Get those cheap coils out of there soon! During a misfire, the raw fuel that doesn't burn in the cylinders will go down the exhaust and can damage the catalytic converters.

 

Truth. As others have mentioned, those aftermarket ignition coils would be highly suspect here. The NGKs are usually quality and shouldn't be a concern unless damaged during installation (cracked ceramic, etc).

*edit: I see you put the OEM ones back in. They're pretty high mileage though. Grab a code scanner, either at the auto parts store or buy one if so inclined, find out which cylinder(s) is misfiring. Swap coil packs around to different cylinders, clear the codes and see if the misfire follows it or stays put. If it follows the coil: replace coil. If it stays with the cylinder: inspect spark plug for damage. If no damage or obvious issues, you can move spark plugs around and verify no issue there...the next step get's tricky.

Also, "I've owned the truck 5 years and babied the crap out of it" isn't a reassuring thing to note. Babied vehicles are as bad as beat-on vehicles. Vehicles need used, you need to push it now and again to get the engine hot and allow it to clean out carbon buildup. It's the ole Italian tune up philosophy, and it's a real thing.

It can be as simple as taking it up in revs on highway on ramps (and the engine is up to operating temp), going for longer drives if your commute is typically short, etc.

Jake