You will kill your cat $1000. Wash that cylinder with raw gas which will dilute your oil. Strain the other 3/4 of the engine. If you don't give your car the attention it needs it will bite you in the butt way worse.
Check that wire, check that cap.
Ohm check from the plug end to the tower in the cap up inside it.
you may or may not be able to unplug the wire from the cap. you did not say the year, or whether you have a 7afe or a 4af or
what have you.
No, you cant drive with a misfire, and you cant go 700 miles.
The ohm reading should be less than 25K ohms. in fact, check them all to get comparitive readings, remembering the shorter ones read less.
The wire should be like a speedo cable inside.
so if you are valiant, and pure in spirit, you can remove the end cover at the plug, and the connector, trim the insulation, cut out about one inch or less of the wound metal core to shorten it, then reassemble. recheck ohms.
If you have injectors, you can backflush that one by following the vids on the "tube". They show many examples of pushing carb clean back thru whilst operating the electrical off the car.
a compression test will verify cylinder pressures.
A valve adjustment does not require parts. If you think about it.
Books are free to read at the library, and parts are cheap at the u-pull-it yard. You cheap ..... ... .. . ..... .... ....
A plug wire on this car has to be metal cored.
Cheap crap will fail in short order.
Nippondenso parts last longest.
Fix your old one if it is cooked on the end.
You need some spray lube, a paper clip, and some pliers.
Big fat hairy deal.
The car computer is obviously not capable of telling you that a spark plug is defective. It can tell you when one cylinder is not firing correctly. I would not run a 4 banger on 3 cylinders for 700 miles without expecting to destroy the engine or getting stranded. It could be the spark plug wire, distributor if it has one, a bad injector if it has one, or bad wiring to the injector. If it has individual coils, it could be a bad coil. or wiring to the coil It could also be bad rings or valves too. I recently had a V6 that was missing on one cyl. It was obvious that mice had chewed through the wires going to one injector.
Get it fixed ASAP and don't even think about driving it 700 miles! It should be an inexpensive fix...as others have said: wires, coil or something a shop can easily diagnose.
Possibly ignition leads, especially if the car is older.
On your model are they standard leads that you can buy off the shelf in any parts store? If so, you can change them yourself, and the cost will be less than the extra fuel that you will waste driving the 800 miles with a misfire.
Without knowing the model year we're just guessing but if its one with individual coils on each plug the coil on that non-firing plug would be suspect.
If you had listed the year of the Corolla, we could tell you where else to look for the ignition problem.
On my Corolla, I have one spark plug that is acting up. My check engine light came on and I knew that was the problem so this time I decided to replace them. And so I did, however the light is still on and I can tell that one of the plugs is not working properly. I am making a 700 mile trip soon and I was wondering if I'll be okay with three working without seriously damaging anything else that would cost me a lot more. The reason I'm not taking it to a shop is because I do not have the money at the moment to fix anything that is required. Anything will be appreciated
