Remember that old (and oft rebooted) game show, "Name That Tune"? Sure you do: contestants would attempt to identify a popular song in fewer notes than their competitors (and variations on that theme). Well, our staffers like to play a similar game: identify a freelancin' dumbass in as few words as possible. One of 'em got lucky with today's nominee, since it only took nine words for her to realize that Darla Ferrara had no idea what she was talking about when she tried to tell people "How to Test Coil Wire" for ItStillRuns.com.
The evidence? Ferrara, herein making her fifth appearance on the awards podium, opened her post with this bit of stupidification:
"The ignition coil wire sits in the ignition distributor of your car..."
coil-on-plug
Right away, everyone here knew that Darla wouldn't have known an ignition coil if one fell on her head while she was pounding on her keyboard. No, Darla, the coil is not in the distributor; it's between the battery and the distributor... that is, if you even have a distributor. A lot of modern cars don't because they have electronic ignition, in which case there's a coil on each spark plug.
Whatever the case, Ferrara, in her infinite wisdom, managed to find a couple of "solutions"... neither of which actually addressed the question. You see, the OQ wanted to know how to test the coil wire, not the coil itself. Darla's two solutions both involved testing the coil – one (most likely) for testing either a coil-on-plug or a "classic" coil (she calls that "shadetree testing") and one for testing the separate ignition coil of a car with a distributor ("bench testing"). Neither actually tests the coil wire!
Bench testing, according to Ferrara, involves using a multimeter when the "Coil Wire is Uninstalled" – at least that's what Darla seemed to think. Actually, the procedure is for testing a coil... We did find the following "warning" amusing, however:
"Do not lean on the fender or against the frame of your car when performing a bench test. Keep both feet on the ground to prevent electrical shock."
How using an ohmmeter to test the resistivity of a coil's windings would cause an electrical shock is puzzling to us. We think maybe Darla got confused about which test that warning should refer to.
That's probably because Ferrara's version of a "Shadetree Test (Coil Wire is Still Installed)" is just plain dangerous; not to mention that Darla managed to conflate instructions for both ignition system types into one useless mashup.
So here's a tip: our Dumbass of the Day did not know what she was talking about, and as a result, we find it necessary to tag her content as DANGEROUS STUPIDITY.
DD - AUTOMOTIVE
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