My Gallardo stranded me at the side of the road today when the engine suddenly spluttered and died, with Engine 1-5 fault and Cat 1-5 fault, on the display.

To cut a long story short, the car was "tilt-trayed" back to the dealer by truck, where they found water in the coil packs.

This is Monday. I washed the car on Saturday (done it many times before with no problem). Seems that finally all that water going down through the engine cover vents made it's way into the coil packs.

As we now know, there is a recent "coil pack upgrade" that will be fitted free of charge to all Gallardo's as a standard update. Mine was scheduled to be done at the first service at 2500km (currently at 1650km). Unfortunately I had the problem happen before upgrade had been done.

The car failed about 160km away from my dealer, Audi Centre Brisbane. Within minutes of me phoning them, they had arranged a special extended length tilt tray truck (Lamborghini "friendly" - so the nose wouldn't hit - which it didn't - one of only two such trucks in Brisbane, apparently) to head off in my direction to collect the car. The truck arrived within two -three hours (my wife needed to pee and found a mower shop 1/2 mile down the road!, and we phoned some friends that own an Espada that just happen to live nearby, and they came to sit with us by the side of the road with coffee and scones to help pass the time) and then we loaded the car on to the truck and then headed back to town, and the truck dropped us off home on the way.

At 7.00pm this evening I got a phone call from the dealer letting me know that they had located the problem and that they would be replacing the coil packs, and also the 1-5 cat, just in case it may have been damaged by the unburnt fuel pouring into it from the "dead" cylinders.

During the "waiting" period for the truck I had several phone calls from the dealer to update me with where the truck was, and to check that we were OK.

All in all, I am really happy with the prompt and efficient dealer support that I received today. Shame about the coil problem, but at least Lamborghini seem to be on top of it and have addressed the problem and come up with a design revision.

If there are any of you guys out their with the original coil packs, I suggest you get them changed ASAP - either that, or don't wash your car!

Cheers,

Jon

Same exact thing happened to me. But the only thing is that there is no lamborghini dealer in New Orleans. By the way, What year model is your car. Also are the old coil pack consider a recall?

It's a 2004 model. I found out later that the main part of the "coil pack upgrade" is the fitting of shields over where the coil pack/plugs are located, to prevent water running down into them. I think they only also replaced the actual coil packs themselves if there had been an occurance of water getting in.

If this upgrade has never been done to your car, it should have been, so you shouldn't have to pay for it.