Fault Family System: Powertrain (P-Codes) 13 SAE Codes

Misfire Single Cylinder

Diagnostic & Technical Explanation

Code P0301 (Cylinder 1 Misfire Detected) sets when the ECM's misfire monitor isolates repeated combustion events lost on one specific cylinder (or, for the unspecified variant, a single cylinder it cannot pin down). The diagnosis path is identical regardless of which cylinder number is reported: the fault lives in that cylinder's ignition, fuel delivery, or mechanical sealing, most commonly a fouled spark plug or failing coil, a clogged or leaking injector, or low compression from a burnt valve or worn rings.

These 13 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 13 times.

Codes in this family (13)

Code	Definition	Repair coverage
P0301	Cylinder 1 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0302	Cylinder 2 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0303	Cylinder 3 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0304	Cylinder 4 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0305	Cylinder 5 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0306	Cylinder 6 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0307	Cylinder 7 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0308	Cylinder 8 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0309	Cylinder 9 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0310	Cylinder 10 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0311	Cylinder 11 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0312	Cylinder 12 Misfire Detected	4 ranked fixes
P0314	Single Cylinder Misfire (Cylinder not Specified)	4 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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