When winter started my 123 diesel would not start when temp under 30F. Dealer had no solution. Independent shop said turn the glowplugs on and off three times. Starts now rigth away after thorough warm up of glow plugs. Hope this helps someone.
my advice would be to install a block heater. these keep the internals warm enough that the iron block dosen't suck the heat out of your autoignition engine.
i have found that a few cycles of the ignition to repeatedly heat the GP's to be marginally effective, though this needlessly wastes their service life.
also, do the diesel purge routine i am making a thread about. do it when you replace both filters every 15K or so. the purge makes cold starting work for me with one cycle of the GPs, even when i can't plug in the block heater, even at 10 degrees fahrenheit.
also, make sure you use a diesel fuel modifier to prevent crystallization of paraffins from the diesel oil, and to boost the cetane a bit to help ignitability on frigid mornings. amsoil has a product called diesel fuel modifier that i find superior to other additives, aside from lubri-moly's offering, and amsoil's cetane boost is excellent as well. a little goes a long way when maintaining your clean system after purging it.
i used two cans of liqui-moly diesel purge in my diesel on the recommendation of well, everybody. the difference afterward is literally like night and day. it should be a part of every inderect-injected diesel's fuel system routine mainenance.
also, it never hurt to do a little "italian tuning" and drive the piss out of your auto once per trip. kick down the gear and blow out all that nasty. ironically, its you slow drivers who need it the most. hammer it once a day. use it or lose it.
cheers,
ryan
Last edited by phideauxiii : 01-19-2007 at 11:08 PM.
When winter started my 123 diesel would not start when temp under 30F. Dealer had no solution. Independent shop said turn the glowplugs on and off three times. Starts now rigth away after thorough warm up of glow plugs. Hope this helps someone.
Instead of multi-glowing, wait 10-15 seconds after the first glow process and after the light goes out and then crank it. Trick is that the glow system actually is still on for 30 seconds even after the GP light goes out. This helps in cold weather, and doing multi-glows eliminates this by cutting short the glow process and doing it over again.
Mines starts right up in 20 degree weather we have had in va the past few weeks, well when its not 80 degrees out, but they it starts just fine too. Thats an 81 240d with 409767 miles on the original engine that burns a quart of oil every 300 miles and blows blue smoke.
I think YALL need to try testing the OHMs of the glow plugs then go replace them. If that doesnt help and the valves are adjusted within spec, do a compression test.
Now the day it was 14 degrees out, I waited 30 seconds and cranked for 15 before mines caught. For 20 degree weather it starts right up. When I had a glow plug die, it was difficult to start in 60 degree weather.
Linear Mode
