Problems With NGK 48729 Coils From Rock Auto

Hey everyone,

I thought I’d share my experience with the above referenced coils that I purchased from Rock Auto back in 2/2022.
After reading this thread, https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1690854&page=3, I decided to purchase 2 coils as spares due to having some intermittent misfires and I didn’t want to pay $250 for an OEM coil. It appeared that some members were able to get the exact same BMW coils (Made in Italy and BMW logo stamped) from Rock Auto for less than $100.

When the coils arrived from Rock Auto, I was disappointed to see that they were made in China and didn’t have BMW logo stamped on them. They looked and felt cheap comparing to my OEM coils. I was planning to return these but somehow forgot about them.

Fast forward to 4/15/22, my car threw P0305 and P0307 codes, but it ran fine without vibration, limp mode, or loss of power. Usually the codes went away next day but this time they stayed. I replaced spark plugs and injectors about 1k miles ago so that led me to think that I had some weak coils. I took out the brand new NGK coils and swapped them in cylinders 5 and 7. I know I was supposed to swap the coils to see if the codes follow but I had 2 new coils and wanted to put them to use.
I turned the car on, it took longer cranking time than usual and went into limp mode immediately after starting up. The car was shaking badly, and I could smell raw fuel from the exhaust. Turned the car off then swapped in the old coils which took care of the issues.

Another note is they’re cheaply made; the tops of the coils cracked easily when I pushed them down into spark plug holes with my palm, see pics.

Below is another member who had issues with this coil.
https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1887216

Here are the pics.

Sorry to hear about that. They're probably counterfeit. You might want to let NGK know.
https://ngksparkplugs.com/en/about-us/contact

DrFerry wrote

Sorry to hear about that. They're probably counterfeit. You might want to let NGK know.
https://ngksparkplugs.com/en/about-us/contact

I forgot to mention, I did reach out to to NGK via phone calls and emails to verify the authenticity of these coils. They confirmed by email that they were authentic.

FYI-They can verify spark plugs via phone calls, other things, you have to email them.

The NGK coils for a while were the same as genuine- BMW logo and everything. Then they were on national backorder for a long while. Now the NGK coils are slightly different and don't have the bmw name cast in. During the shortage they were obviously changing suppliers and now some of them are problematic.

Damn. I just bought 8 of them just in case.
Thanks OP and deansbimmer
Any alternatives besides the BMW one's?
.

Trinh_7 wrote

Here are the pics.

take a photo of the whole coil and let me see.

I'll do a write-up on coils here on M3post shortly about coils and production.

Updates: Got replacement coils from Rock Auto yesterday and they were the same as the faulty ones (Date code:29k21). Upon opening up the packaging I noticed their plastic bags were torn; looks like someone tried these and returned back to Rock Auto.

From NGK-
"NGK has manufacturing plants around the world. There was a period of time that a large group of coils were produced by a plant is no longer being used by NGK. This has fixed the concerns of products not being made to the high standards of NGK. It is impossible for us to know where your specific part would come from. Unfortunately, there are retailers out there that are still using the faulty coils and possibly even fake units. I cannot speak for other retailers, but our parts are the most up to date and genuine NGK parts. They may have used stock from the faulty batch."

Apparently there's a faulty batch of these coils floating around on the market.

GORDON.M3 Here you go.

The new ones also don't have this qr codes like the good ones did. This is a pic of one of mine from 2020.

Perhaps ask NGK if the new ones are suppose to have this qr code, I thought that could be how they tell they are genuine.

That really sucks. At one point in time the supplier or the warehouse/RA were grinding off the logos for obvious legal reasons.

I purchased a full set at various points during the last 1-2 years from RA.
All arrived looking good. I would continue your effort to get it resolved. Best of luck!

This was opened tonight:

Trinh_7 wrote

Updates: Got replacement coils from Rock Auto yesterday and they were the same as the faulty ones (Date code:29k21). Upon opening up the packaging I noticed their plastic bags were torn; looks like someone tried these and returned back to Rock Auto.

From NGK-
"NGK has manufacturing plants around the world. There was a period of time that a large group of coils were produced by a plant is no longer being used by NGK. This has fixed the concerns of products not being made to the high standards of NGK. It is impossible for us to know where your specific part would come from. Unfortunately, there are retailers out there that are still using the faulty coils and possibly even fake units. I cannot speak for other retailers, but our parts are the most up to date and genuine NGK parts. They may have used stock from the faulty batch."

Apparently there's a faulty batch of these coils floating around on the market.

GORDON.M3 Here you go.

Alright judging by the looks of it, it seems that NGK might have contracted another factory to do their coils aside from Eldor. This might be the bad batch they were talking about that is floating around the market.

These coils look half decent as they do have gold contacts down the center of the coil which usually makes contact with the engine.

The previous/earlier NGK ones I had ordered before were no issue and looked exactly like the ones with QR codes from Eldor.

I'm sure what happened in the middle of all this was that NGK had a shortage, but had a huge national back-order. So they got desperate to manufacture them by reaching out to their other suppliers/partnered manufacturers.

GORDON.M3 wrote

Alright judging by the looks of it, it seems that NGK might have contracted another factory to do their coils aside from Eldor. This might be the bad batch they were talking about that is floating around the market.

These coils look half decent as they do have gold contacts down the center of the coil which usually makes contact with the engine.

The previous/earlier NGK ones I had ordered before were no issue and looked exactly like the ones with QR codes from Eldor.

I'm sure what happened in the middle of all this was that NGK had a shortage, but had a huge national back-order. So they got desperate to manufacture them by reaching out to their other suppliers/partnered manufacturers.

Crapolla! Good to know.

Ordered a set late summer 2021 direct from NGK. Never occurred to check country of origin. Left boxed until installed Dec 2021.

Ironically, struggling w/intermittent CELs for Emissions, worse yet intermittent misfires, more 'worser' LM.
These coil packs may be a cause/source of issues ?!?

smokinjoe64 wrote

Crapolla! Good to know.

Ordered a set late summer 2021 direct from NGK. Never occurred to check country of origin. Left boxed until installed Dec 2021.

Ironically, struggling w/intermittent CELs for Emissions, worse yet intermittent misfires, more 'worser' LM.
These coil packs may be a cause/source of issues ?!?

Might possibly be. Even the Eldor ones aren't perfect either but they are the current OEM replacement as BMW dropped Bosch as an OEM coil pack supplier many many years ago.

Eldor themselves internally before had issues with their N55 coil packs a couple years back, we were talking about 20,000 miles and the coils were suffering from misfiring and inconsistent firing.

Pull them out to take a look at and see if you have a bad batch like OP.

I ended up returning the coils back to RA for a full refund. I'm glad RA finally approved the refund and not sending the faulty coils again.

Tried to ask NGK a bunch of questions about the coils with BMW logo and QR code but was given little to no answers. I would wait for the BOSCH coils once they become available again or perhaps buy the OEM ones if i really need them.


smokinjoe64 I solved my increased emissions and intermittent misfires on #5 and #7 this weekend and thought this info was helpful for you. The culprit was the weak coils. I replaced the bad coils with the used oem coils from a wrecked car and the issues were solved. The symptoms were:
1. Car ran rough during cold start with slightly vibration but not affecting idle.
2. Car ran rough as described from #1 after start up when the car was fully warmed up or semi warmed up (so basically all the time during start up).
3. The codes only came back after ~300 miles trip and during cold start after they were cleared.

Trinh_7 wrote

I ended up returning the coils back to RA for a full refund. I'm glad RA finally approved the refund and not sending the faulty coils again.

Tried to ask NGK a bunch of questions about the coils with BMW logo and QR code but was given little to no answers. I would wait for the BOSCH coils once they become available again or perhaps buy the OEM ones if i really need them.


smokinjoe64 I solved my increased emissions and intermittent misfires on #5 and #7 this weekend and thought this info was helpful for you. The culprit was the weak coils. I replaced the bad coils with the used oem coils from a wrecked car and the issues were solved. The symptoms were:
1. Car ran rough during cold start with slightly vibration but not affecting idle.
2. Car ran rough as described from #1 after start up when the car was fully warmed up or semi warmed up (so basically all the time during start up).
3. The codes only came back after ~300 miles trip and during cold start after they were cleared.

Great news, appreciated.

Still struggling with random misfires only in bank 2...NGK coils replaced in Dec 21 were the previous supplier type, supposedly the 'reliable' packs.

Been running E85 Stage II w/Alpine map.
Thinking, burn down E85 revert to OE map, fuel w/91 oct see how it goes. If misfires eliminated, then Stage II w/91 oct...

smokinjoe64 wrote

Great news, appreciated.

Still struggling with random misfires only in bank 2...NGK coils replaced in Dec 21 were the previous supplier type, supposedly the 'reliable' packs.

Been running E85 Stage II w/Alpine map.
Thinking, burn down E85 revert to OE map, fuel w/91 oct see how it goes. If misfires eliminated, then Stage II w/91 oct...

If you are having issues, then I would try to diagnose on a base map (Stock) tune. This user here had issues with the Alpine tune. https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1532390

There should be no concern over using those Eldor NGK coil packs. They are OEM. Good luck waiting on the BOSCH coils. They’re unlikely to ever be stocked. Since they were dropped as an OEM supplier, they have no reason to manufacture more for a car out of production.

This guy replaced all coils with Rock Auto parts and had misfires on all 8 cylinders. There definitely seems to be issues with the coils RA are shipping.

https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1914407

Redd wrote

This guy replaced all coils with Rock Auto parts and had misfires on all 8 cylinders. There definitely seems to be issues with the coils RA are shipping.

https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1914407

Submit this ain't a RA issue, they simply distribute/sale what they get from NGK.

I purchased 8 coils directly from NGK [Aug `21]. Supposedly, from the 'Italian' supplier.

Struggling w/ bank 2 misfires & MULTIPLE LM events; regular, recurring.
Also, replaced Bosch O2 sensors 2x within ~1,200 period.
Still no joy for a solution.

This what I'm experiencing:

smokinjoe64 wrote

Submit this ain't a RA issue, they simply distribute/sale what they get from NGK.

I purchased 8 coils directly from NGK [Aug `21]. Supposedly, from the 'Italian' supplier.

Struggling w/ bank 2 misfires & MULTIPLE LM events; regular, recurring.
Also, replaced Bosch O2 sensors 2x within ~1,200 period.
Still no joy for a solution.

This what I'm experiencing:

Have you replaced your throttle actuators? Some of those codes lined up when I had a failing actuator.

TX wrote

Have you replaced your throttle actuators? Some of those codes lined up when I had a failing actuator.

Appreciate the feedback!

Original Owner - Tryin' to keep all squared away, along with 'select' mods so she'll last and remain a joy to drive daily.

So affirmative for TA replacements...along with the long list of PM's, repairs & upgrades.

smokinjoe64 wrote

Appreciate the feedback!

Original Owner - Tryin' to keep all squared away, along with 'select' mods so she'll last and remain a joy to drive daily.

So affirmative for TA replacements...along with the long list of PM's, repairs & upgrades.

Yes. My apologies, I didn't read that far up the post tonight. May I offer the suggestion of removing the tune.