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I Found The Dead Cylinder, What Next?
Quite a few things can cause an engine cylinder to misfire. In a nutshell, a misfire will be due to one of the following:
- The cylinder is not getting spark. Most likely causes are:
- Bad ignition coil.
- Bad spark plug plug.
- The cylinder is not getting fuel. Most likely causes are:
- Bad fuel injector.
- Clogged fuel injector.
- The cylinder has low engine compression. Most likely causes are:
- Worn piston compression rings.
- Damaged or severely worn cylinder head valves.
- You can find the engine compression test explained here: How To Test Engine Compression (2.4L Chevrolet Malibu).
The good news is that once you have identified the dead cylinder then finding out what's behind the cylinder misfire is not difficult. And finding and replacing the defective component causing the misfire will save you time and money.
To find out the exact cause of the dead cylinder's misfire you'll need to:
- Make sure that the dead cylinder is getting spark by testing its ignition coil for spark and making sure that its spark plug isn't damaged in any way.
- Make sure that the dead cylinder is getting fuel by testing its fuel injector. This usually involves testing the fuel injector's internal coil winding's resistance to see if it's suffered a short-circuit or an open-circuit problem.
- Make sure that the dead cylinder has good compression by testing engine compression.
These tests are not hard and you can find most of them explained in a tutorial here in this website in a step-by-step way.
More 2.4L GM Tutorials
You can find a complete list of 2.4L Chevrolet and Pontiac tutorials here: GM 2.4L Index Of Articles.
Here's a list of articles, you'll find there:
- How To Test The MAP Sensor (2008-2012 2.4L Chevrolet Malibu).
- How To Test For A Blown Head Gasket (2.4L Cobalt, HHR, Malibu, G5, G6, Solstice).
- How To Test Engine Compression (2.4L Cobalt, HHR, Malibu, G5, G6, Solstice).
- When Should I Replace The Spark Plugs (2.4L Cobalt, HHR, Malibu, G5, G6, Solstice).
