Ignition coils, how to remove a stuck coil boot?

Hello, you're trying to remove this section of the boot off of a coil. Or is it stuck on the spark plug? The boot section of these coils is not designed to come apart as stated in service info, if it's stuck on the spark plug, the coil may have overheated and the boot melted, these are known for failing. Sometimes when they short out, they also damage the engine computer (ECM) because they are a 2-wire coil. I have replaced ECMs due to these shorting out causing excessive current flow through the computer.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-test-an-ignition-system

It sounds like it overheated, the boot is probably no good anymore. If you can get a long straight pair of needle nose pliers down there and try to pull it out. It may have melted if it was arcing spark directly to the engine block instead of through the spark plug. You may end up pulling it out in pieces if it's that bad.
Make sure you torque the new spark plug to 20 lbs-ft as well when installing new ones.

Let us know how you make out. It's best to use OEM Jeep parts instead of aftermarket parts. Especially on these 2 wire ignition coils. I have had situations where the customer I was working with replaced a failed coil with a cheap aftermarket coil from O'Reilly's and it burned up right away. The aftermarket coils will fail prematurely. And if you do find the coil boot melted onto the plug, there are some reasons why coils fail. Although it has high mileage, if that cylinder is running lean (lack of fuel) this causes the ignition coil to be overworked and it overheats. So, if you take all the spark plugs out and they look whiteish, that's a sign the cylinder or entire engine may be running lean.

You can also check this with a scan tool, by looking at the live engine data, and looking at a data PID called Long Term and Short Term Fuel Trims. For each bank of the engine, so Bank 1 for example, add the Long Term and Short-Term numbers up and that's the total Fuel trim. Positive numbers mean the engine computer is adding fuel to the air/fuel mixture, negative numbers indicate it is reducing the amount of fuel. Anything +/- 10% is the limit you want to see.

The last Jeep I worked on with a coil issue ended up being a tank of bad gas, but the cylinder misfires overheated multiple ignition coils, shorted one out and burned up the engine computer. Here are a couple of guides below to help, you don't need a code P0171 or P0174, the engine can still be too lean. Or that one cylinder can be lean. With the high mileage I would add some fuel treatment to a full tank of gas. You may want to have a fuel injector balance test done to make sure they are all flowing at the same rate. Fuel Trim numbers will also tell you this.

Here is the OEM Ignition Coil part number, the spark plug part number (they are NGK so it's a good plug) and the plug gap.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/repair-lean-mixture-codes-p0171-or-p0174-on-some-manufacturers

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-test-a-fuel-injector