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have an 05 hippo and it melted a coil pack on the front of the motor. one of the coil on plug types. i replaced with a used one i had changed for a misfire and it melted too. bought a new one from the parts store and left it loose, not connected to plug, to test. cuz i dont want to dig pieces of coil out of that bore again!!! turned on ignition but didnt crank and went out to feel it and was very very hot very quickly. the others were cold.

Local Bosch shop can’t get me in until week after thanksgiving. Not thankful for that... no local rover dealers... so dug in a bit more. Didn’t tear all the wire loom apart but I did get some resistance between the black and black/white stripe wire on the coil connector. Traced back to ecm and on the connector where the coils connect to the ecm I get continuity/low resistance around 1 ohm, between the black/white stripe wire and the center of the plug ”ground” wire. Does this sound indicative of an ecm failure? I checked it both connected and disconnected to ensure I was reading the ecm as fault and not the wires. When disconnected not reading continuity at coil connector. And also no connection from that center “ground“ wire to any of the other coil wires.
long story long... bad computer sound about right? if replacing do yo have to reprogram the whole car?

any help. thanks!

I'm assuming it's a V6 US spec FL1?

This is a description of the pencil coil ignition system.

Update: long story short. Coil fried, twice, took out computer. Used “rebuilt” computer not compatible and can’t be reprogrammed to match immobilizer and key chip. Sent orig ecm to module experts in Florida and they were able to repair it with a lifetime warranty! Great job, one week turn around time. Reinstalled and she lives! All good.

but did they find the problem I have not heard of this before so I am really interested

Well, the Bosch shop could’nt figure out what the problem was and couldn’t program the reman Ecm I left with them. Left to my own devices, I searched out a service to repair modules. Sent it away and proceeded to trace out wires and measure resistances from the ecm lication harness and the coils. When everything checked out, or at least didn’t find any wildly different coil resistances or shorts or frayed/melted wires, I presumed it was a chicken or egg thing. Did the coil fail, melted and shorted the ecm driver for that coil or did the ecm driver fail leaving the coil energized constantly causing it to melt?? One of the great mysteries of our time! Right up there with gobekli tepe. When the repaired ecm came in I installed it and cautiously fired it up and waited. All seemed good so stared the car and she ran like a champ! No problem yet, a couple weeks in. Car just seems to run better and stronger the farther we are away the failure. I really love this car so far and hope I can dispel some the bad rep they get. Every car has failures it’s how we react to them that defines our experience and our partners longevity. I hope... lol

Thanks for confirming the fix. May i ask how much it cost to get the ecm repaired? Just for future reference.

Sure! Glad to help and keep info out here. It was $230 us. www.moduleexperts.com