[mwebb]

Originally Posted by drmiller100

or just plug in an obd2 scanner and it will show misfire on the offending cylinder.

if you have the OBD2 scan tool with ENHANCED capability s you might be able to use or view misfire counters , but even if you could get a
p030X (where X is the # of the misfiring cylinder ) from the generic tool
all you would see is the Scan Tool's interpretation of the data it is presented
you would NOT know the actual cause of the misfire.

assuming
you have a scan tool for you particular application and
assuming you have a later OBD2 system as the earlier systems did not report the correct cylinder if it would report anything other than
p0300 , random misfire .

anyway
ENHANCED scan tools can be a part of the solution
many times
but
not always

most Generic OBD2 scan tools are pretty useless , except ESCAN

enhanced scan tools that can graph and log paired with high resolution scopes are the answer , imho