The VSC off light was on, as well as Traction Control System light was on. My son was home, and he worked in a Firestone full service shop the last 2 years, on the counter, not a mechanic (although he does a lot of work on his cars). 2009 has 80,000 miles, asked if I had changed the spark plugs, said no. He said 80% chance its the coil on top of a spark plug, 20% chance its the spark plugs, but a cyl is not firing right.
Since the plugs should be changed anyway, we did that, no improvement. I went with some Denso iridium with 1 electrode, $8 a plug.
Then we went and got 1 coil ($80) and tried replacing the coils one at a time. On the second one the engine quit missing. He got the check engine light to go off after playing with the battery cables a little, and it never came back on.
The idle was low. He said drive it around for a while and it should relearn its setting, and it did that after about 20 minutes of stop and go driving.
I am back in business, totally happy.
Wife drives 14 miles each way to work, little go and a lot of stop at lights along Clay Rd. in west Houston. Son said the plugs could be like they had 120K miles on them, not just 80K, since the engine is idling even though not putting miles on the odometer.
I did some searches for check engine light, and while there are a lot of topics on it, I did not see my symptoms or fix like this, so I thought it would be good to put up a post.
I'm at nine years, original owner, second vibe, and the car body is still perfect, sleeps in a garage. I plan to keep it another 4 years, for just putting to work, it seems ideal. Plus when we need to move a few boxes, or small to medium piece of furniture, it fills the bill for a small pickup truck that I don't have (and really don't want).
I enjoy this forum, you guys have helped me out, and I hope this helps someone else out.