So I had to do plugs and (having swallowed their marketing) thought I'd pop in a set of Bavauto's high performance coils. Having removed the factory coils before, it *seemed* easy enough.
Turns out the plastic housing around the three-pronged male connector (see pic) is out of tolerance relative to the factory (female) cable. The factory cable would not seat on the aftermarket coil, even with wiggling and maximum two-handed pressure. I was not going to force them together with pliers--too risky IMHO. Tried two cables and four coils, consistent no-fit. Mailed BavAuto customer service Sunday night, no reply by end of day Monday. Emailed them again monday night. No reply by noon Tuesday. Kinda disapppointed about that.
Called and talked to BavAuto customer service, some cat named Rob, whose advice was 'just wiggle the connectors.' Been there already. When I informed him they would NOT seat, he cut to the chase and stated he'd supply a Return Merch Authorization number, took my email, and that was that. Never got that email either BTW. It occurred to me that perhaps I received the wrong coils, although they sure looked right. I called back, talked to sales this time, verified part numbers, which were correct.
Decided to get the calipers out and look for the bad tolerance between the factory coil connector and the aftermarket one. Most dimensions were with 1-1.2 mm, so pretty good. Got to the bottom of the triangle (see pic) and the gap to accomodate the shell of the cable's connector was way off for the aftermarket coil - about half what it should have been AND narrows at the back. (A vs B in pic) That's why the factory cable won't seat. Bad tolerances as I suspected. Probably bad chinese(?) plastic.
Solution was to flex the plastic gently with a narrow screwdriver to get some flex in the shell of the coil side of the connector. Take your time. You have to do this gently but the gap widens out enough to allow the factory connector to seat fully and properly. A little tri-flow on the screwdriver leaves behind some trace that helps the connectors mate better too. After this tweak, all the connectors seated fine and the retaining clips locked as designed.
If anybody from BavAuto reads this: you guys should already know this stuff. And please answer emails to your support address promptly!
Mistress runs nice with new plugs and coils (heh. Have fun taking that out of context.)
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