I've got an 01' Escape, v6 and Monday morning the CEL was blinking and car was surging noticably (meaning misfiring) so after work I pulled the codes and it read P0304 (cylinder 4 misfire).

I recently had to replace 3 of the coilpacks so that's what I checked first. I swapped 4 and 5 and it still read 4 was bad, so not the coilpack... Pulled the plugs (not even 4,000 miles on them) and they still look great.

After the inital morning of the CEL blinking and car surging, the light has remained steady, but do not notice anything out of the ordinary (no noises, surging, etc). I drove the 30 mins to work hoping it would clear the light, but no.

I guess i'm look for sugestions from here. I've babied it since the light came on, and have avoided driving it, am I causing damage? Should I try clearing the light? I'm supposed to head across state this weekend (~300 mi round trip) do I dare or really get this thing fixed? I suppose it could be the wires, can you easily swap those to see if thats the case?
Thanks for any help!

 

When the CEL flashes (once per second), itindicates that a misfire is detected 'severe enough' to cause catalyst damage. If the CEL is on steadyfrom a misfire, it'sindicating the threshold for emissions has been exceeded.. If you swapped the COP, that should have included the boot/connection and if bad, should have followed the swap as well.. Which of the initial 3 did you replace? If an injectorhangs,and allows for any unmetered fuel drop, it can cause a surge and/or misfire and flash the CEL.. Or a bad injector/connection can cause a misfire.. You might try clearing the CEL, and driving the vehicle to complete the diagnostic monitors and see if the light resets.. Generally it'll take an extended 'driving strategy' to be met/completed for themonitors to test, usaully a few days or so depending on the miles drive, and conditions met.. Are you reading this code with a code reader, or do you have a scan tool?