Coil vs. Ingiter

motofabio · 11-14-2008

Sorry for the newb subject matter here, but I lean towards bikes rather than cars. Anyway, the mechanic is telling me that the igniter is bad. But the coil was just replaced.

WTF is the igniter? Is it another name for the ignition coil?

2000 Civic EX

Thanks!

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DsevenEm2 · 11-15-2008

Ok basically, your Ignition Coil builds up voltage created by your engine, while its running.

Your Igniter tells the Ignition Coil when to release that voltage, through the leads, onto the spark plug.

Just because you replaced the coil, doesn't mean that the igniter can't still be bad. You can test resistance on the igniter with an ohm meter, but you'd have to look in a service manual to find out how to do it correctly.

motofabio · 11-15-2008

Makes sense. Thanks!

motofabio · 11-17-2008

So will a bad igniter burn out the coil?

DsevenEm2 · 11-17-2008

It won't "burn out" the coil, but it will cause it to not act right. They work in conjunction with each other. When one's not working right, the other will act funny, and vice versa.

Since you replaced the coil, I'd say replace the igniter.. but you might have to replace the whole assembly.. I can't remember but you have a distributor right? I'm pretty sure the Igniter is in the distributor as a small module, if not its in an external "ignition module" type deal.. I'm not too sure on your car though.

You need a service manual lol.

motofabio · 12-04-2008

Follow up -- igniter replaced. Runs great again. Thanks!