Advice needed to remove or not to remove that is the question?

[A6forever]

My A8 3.0tdi with the ASB engine has a broken glow plug in cylinder 6. The plug has snapped towards the tip end. It is still firmly in place. Other than a flashing glow plug light and a bit of unburnt diesel resulting in some white smoke on start up all is fine.

My dilemma is that I have found a specialist glow plug remover who is prepared to drill it and tap it out for the sum of £100 plus the cost of me buying a new plug and the travel to take the car to his location about an hour away.

I am tempted as this is a very reasonable price but I am nervous that if anything goes wrong it I may end up with a much bigger problem than I have now.

Can I ask the community on here what they would do in this situation?

Has anyone been in this position?

Does anyone know what the success rate is when doing this procedure?

Thanks in advance of any advice.

[EG-4.0TDI]

I think I'd talk to lots of people who do this procedure and see what the collective view is. I recall reading somewhere that drilling them out with the head still on the engine is a bad idea as the swarf can end up in the cylinders - so I guess the question is can they do it in such a way that gets round that particular issue and will they warrant it?

[tipptop]

I would imagine that the specialist glow plug guy knows what he's doing. I'd also imagine any further damage would be his problem to fix. I'd go for it, the new plug is about €30 from audi p/n 059963319 or just get a beru GE115 for €15 or so. I'd say the guy will heat and cool a few cycles to break the seal then drill and try easy out before going full on drill out and re-tap. I replaced one of mine last week, thankfully it came out easy, just have the engine as hot as possible.