cold start mis fire

[twins50]

any ideas on this--car idles lumpy then settles after a few seconds vw passat sport 2.0 tdi 140 06

[martin1810]

Get the glowplugs checked just incase you have a dud. Do you see any sign of unburnt fuel. It looks abit like steam but smells of fuel.

[twins50]

thanks martin1810 checked that today no unburnt fuel and no steam(was quite cold so did see condensed exhaust fumes) only seems to play up when its first started cold and it never seemed to effect it during summer. pulls like a train still! not had a good dose of shell v power for a while so may try that and if no change, a trip to my friendly vw specialist is in order.

[muggysnr]

I experienced a similar problem in cold weather, but found that if I waited until the glow plug light went out before I started the car then it started and ran smoothly. I tried this after realising that my wife’s car would pause starting until the glow plug light went out!

[twins50]

ah thanks for that one muggysnr car starts up same even after letting glowplug light go out-must be just a winter thing but martin 1810 advice is on my mind at the moment- never had to have glow plugs replaced on any of my cars and my car has done just short of 60000m

[Crasher]

Is it using water?

This can be a symptom on an injector on the way out, when they do eventually fail, the car just stops unlike the earlier PD’s when they dropped onto 33 cylinders. I did a 2007 Passat 3C like this earlier this week, it just stopped dead in the road, it was just one failed injector but the ECU shut the engine down.

[twins50]

doesnt seem to have lost any water, Crasher. How are the plugs linked to cooling system?

[Crasher]

Plugs? The glow plugs can come up as faulty on scan and if it is suffering from head porosity issues, the glow plug on number 1 often comes up as faulty

[twins50]

ah right -no fault codes or ecu warnings and hope to rule out porosity issues as water level is ok and hasnt changed since last i looked at it over a month ago. any idea what going rate for checking and replacement for glowplugs at main dealer and independant-assume this is a garage job?

[Quatrelle]

I experienced a similar problem in cold weather, but found that if I waited until the glow plug light went out before I started the car then it started and ran smoothly. I tried this after realising that my wife’s car would pause starting until the glow plug light went out!

Always wait for the glow plug light to go out, that's what it's there for. Only takes a second or two - I usually put my seatbelt on.