When buying a Coil...

[boxerulez]

Always open up and check merchandise in store.

I had ample wicked words with a dealer today about my blue coil.

Ordered 8 Bosch plugs and a Blue coil from them, Picked it up today and later sitting in the bakkie at the filling station, waiting for attendant to pump some "gas" i opened her up and saw an impression the shape of the trumpet in the box lid. Low and behold, the trumpet was cracked, and the box had all the evidence of the aluminium rubbing off on the inside.

This part has been around their shelves for a couple of months at least and it obviously had been dropped on the top, and put back on the shelf to try and catch some noob with a Slap Riem. I was totally disgusted when I returned it and Mr Sales assistant along with his manager wanted to argue with me that this was a brand new coil that came in with the plugs that I ordered. At this point I opened up the cracked coil and pointed out the inside of the packaging and told them to fetch another one. I opened the new one and voila. Clean Box. Also at this stage I noticed even corrosion on the 2 terminals on either side of the trumpet.

BeWARE

Check your electrical goods before leaving supplier.

They ended up replacing the coil although technically they did not have to as It was my duty to check it before I left.

In the end it cost me R230 for the Blue coil and R17.50 ea for the Bosch Super 10's.

[Variant]

Check out the following on Bosch Blue Coils:

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/BlueCoil.html

[Dawie]

The blue coil of lately is just an average generic coil for use with points. It's painted blue because people seem to buy them when blue.

Around the 60's and 70's Bosch had a blue and red "performance" coil. The only thing they have in common with today's blue coils is that they are:
1) Painted blue
2) A coil, that works with points.

There is a better coil than the blue one:
This is called the Black German Bosch coil, as found on VW's from the 70's.
From experience i know this. Once i had to get a 6- cylinder engine running using points and a coil. The blue Bosch (Spanish version) was advertised as: suitable up to 6 cylinders and 7000rpm's.
Had misfiring issues above 4500- 5000 rpm's. Bought another blue coil with same results. Then tried a black German Bosch coil from a 77 1300 beetle and problem gone. Could not believe this, so tried both blue coils again. Both were misfiring at high rpm's. Then tried another black coil from a 75 1800 kombi, problem fixed. Still could not believe this, so i bought a third blue coil from a different vendor. Same result...also misfiring at high rpm's. Even used various different condensers, no luck. Tried another black coil, this time from a 78 2L kombi. Problem fixed.

The black 1300 beetle coil worked perfectly on the 6 cylinder for over 20 years, and good for 7000rpm's. It's still there, but recently i added a home-designed electronic CDI- box. (Still triggered by points).

The blue coil will work on a beetle, as with only 4 cylinders and limited rpm's it is adequate. But the old black German Bosch coil works better.

The blue coils in question had secondary resistances around 9.5 kOhm to 10 kOhms.
Good Bosch black coils had 5.5 to 5.7 kOhms secondary resistance.
Both types had around 3 Ohm primaries.

Once i bought some black coils from a VW scrapyard for experimental purposes. They were marked "faulty" by an "experienced" mechanic and previously returned to the scrapyard. Turned out all of them were perfect, fault must have been elsewhere. Must ad that Lucas and some other make coils often gives trouble.

Think the complete electronic distributor setup from the box- shape third-generation kombi is by far the best setup for those looking for a hotter spark.

[Dawie]

By the way, when you shake the coil, you should not hear the oil inside "sloshing around". If so, it means some of the oil has been leaking out. There should be no signs of oil leaking out of the coil. Later type coilpacks and "coil on plug" applications are epoxy-filled and some of those have issues with the epoxy cracking from heat and age.