Fault Family System: Powertrain (P-Codes) 12 SAE Codes

Cylinder Contribution Balance

Diagnostic & Technical Explanation

Code P0263 (Cylinder 1 Contribution/Balance) sets when the ECM's cylinder balance test finds one cylinder contributing more or less power than its neighbors beyond the calibrated tolerance. Causes are a weak or clogged injector on that cylinder, uneven compression, or a vacuum leak local to that cylinder's intake runner.

These 12 diagnostic trouble codes share one detection mechanism and one repair path, which is why MechanicDB groups them into a single authored fault family rather than repeating the same explanation 12 times.

Codes in this family (12)

Code	Definition	Repair coverage
P0263	Cylinder 1 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes
P0266	Cylinder 2 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes
P0269	Cylinder 3 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes
P0272	Cylinder 4 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes
P0275	Cylinder 5 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes
P0278	Cylinder 6 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes
P0281	Cylinder 7 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes
P0284	Cylinder 8 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes
P0287	Cylinder 9 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes
P0290	Cylinder 10 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes
P0293	Cylinder 11 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes
P0296	Cylinder 12 Contribution/Balance	3 ranked fixes

What this page does not show

This page publishes the fault mechanism and the code index. The licensed dataset adds, for every one of the 15,886 codes, the full authored repair set (56,729 procedures in total) with the fields deliberately withheld here:

Procedures 2..n after the first-listed procedure
Aftermarket parts cost ranges in USD (est_parts_cost_min/max_usd)
Professional labor-hour estimates (est_labor_hours)
Step-by-step diagnostic and repair instructions
Replacement-part mappings and catalog lookups
6,637 manufacturer-specific OEM codes across 32 makes ($149 tier)

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