fouled plugs
 

Daughters 02 honda civic has been running poorly. Lots of missing. Codes a random misfire in all 4. Trip to the dealer, 2 ignition coils, 2 seperate diag. checks later somebody finally pulls a plug and declares someone ran deisel in it.To me, seems they should have started at the plugs. I think it is not deisel because she says the car never smoked. What else could be going on that would leave an oily deposit and foul the plugs? The car only has 44,000 miles on it and ran fine when she purchased it several months ago. Must point out it was a Katrina car that she bought "as is" after being told it only flooded to the floor board. Waterline in trunk and door frames says flooded to the windows. Thanks for any help.

Are you saying the plugs are oil fouled? If so, what is the oil consumption? If it was a flood car, it doesn't matter how many miles it has on it.

To the best of my knowledge it does not use oil, I know it does not smoke, and when I say oil film, I am only repeating what was said by the mech. Have not actually seen it myself but will be pulling them out tomorrow. I am guessing that it is going to run much better right from the start but am wondering if it is a problem that is going to reappear. Would oil use and an oily plug indicate a failed seal of some sort in the plug area or could it be metal parts that no longer fit flush as they should? I guess what I am asking is "How does engine oil get to and then foul a plug? Answer does not have to be too technical.
Thanks

Oil gets into the combustion chamber by leaking past the piston rings, valve seals or valve guides. There can be excess oil in the crankcase vapors making their way to the intake manifold via the PCV valve.

Any of these suggest a neglected engine but with only 44K miles probably an abused engine.

Sixto

Changed the plugs and they were pretty bad. Looked like the originals. Very "sooty", points nearly gone. One was even missing a large part of the ceramic but I could tell that was old damage. But no presence of oil. It is running a little smoother but still missing. Can a clogged injector cause this? Maybe bad wiring to a coil? Would a code for the oxygen sensor before the cat. cause this? Amazingly, the cat. seems fine. No smothering or apparent back pressure, very free flow of exhaust. I am guessing it can be many more things than the above. Ideas where to start or stop gladly considered!