Glow plugs 101 Ver. 2.0

mjez · Jan 13, 2015

Vince Waldon said:
Gotta ask.... you cleared the code, right?

Oops... I didn't do that at first because check engine light would stay off when I first started the car and would not come on until after 30-45 seconds, that's how it was before I changed the glow plug harness and that's exactly what happened after the change. However, after I read your post, today I decided that I would try and clear the code and to my surprise it didn't come back on.
Thank you.

DavidMTroyer · Jan 13, 2015

Looking for general advice on cleaning out carbon buildup in the glow plug chamber. Sorry, read about 30 pages of this thread but didn't see anything.

tdismithville · Jan 16, 2015

ymz said:
Well... the BEW engine has had 2 "recalls" for modification of the glow plug circuits... the first one was to put in steel 5 volt glow plugs (p/n N10591607), but those proved to be less than a perfect solution, so there was a second "recall" to flash the car's computer to accomodate the newest NGK ceramic glow plugs (p/n N10591609). You may need to visit a dealer to find out which version of the "flash" your car currently has... perhaps you need to upgrade to the "latest and greatest" version of this kludge...

Good luck,

Yuri

Well I called the dealership and was told that my 2006 Golf wasn't involved in any glow plug recalls....so I guess I'm on my own with this. Still have no idea why the system isn't working. Guess I'll have to take it to a specialist. ....just not the dealership

SuburbanTDI · Jan 16, 2015

Some cars with the BEW will be fixed by a reflash of the ecu with the same software.

Not something intuitive, but it will work on some cars that have a cold start problem

tdismithville · Jan 16, 2015

SuburbanTDI said:
Some cars with the BEW will be fixed by a reflash of the ecu with the same software.

Not something intuitive, but it will work on some cars that have a cold start problem

Great thanks. I'll try that

ymz · Jan 16, 2015

tdismithville said:
Well I called the dealership and was told that my 2006 Golf wasn't involved in any glow plug recalls...

Well... they weren't called "recalls" but Technical Service Bulletins... go to http://www.vw.com/web/vw/recall/index.html to see if you can find out info that the dealer couldn't...

Yuri

tdismithville · Jan 16, 2015

ymz said:
Well... they weren't called "recalls" but Technical Service Bulletins... go to http://www.vw.com/web/vw/recall/index.html to see if you can find out info that the dealer couldn't...

Yuri

Thanks Yuri

HopefulFred · Jan 17, 2015

Just looking for an informed perspective here - just to learn something.
I recently got a MIL for #2 glow plug (06 Golf, BEW). After a round or two of clearing it and checking resistances, finding no high resistance plugs, I ordered a new set from idparts. I eventually confirmed a bad plug (#2 finally tested at 134Ohms). My parts arrived, and I swapped them all out. I remember now that my car wasn't flashed when the recall was active (even though I went in for the service, they returned it to me saying that I had the best current firmware, no changes made). Anyway, I swapped all the plugs and took this image. Obviously, #2 wasn't working.
The real reason for the post is to ask why the tips are all warty looking.

You'll notice that #4 was swapped at some point for a new number. I think #2 was also swapped back when the car was a spring chicken.

tdismithville · Jan 21, 2015

I have a crazy question. I've watched videos on youtube of guys bench testing glow plugs with a car battery to check the glow. Would it be possible to remove the glow plugs, plug them into the harness, and turn the key to see if they all glow? That way I'd know if the plugs and the harness (and the relay) are all good. No?

Vince Waldon · Jan 21, 2015

Yes that would work fine... you'd just need a way to ground all four of them with heavy-duty connections (they each draw 10 amps or so) and position them physically so that they don't melt anything.

tdismithville · Jan 21, 2015

Vince Waldon said:
Yes that would work fine... you'd just need a way to ground all four of them with heavy-duty connections (they each draw 10 amps or so) and position them physically so that they don't melt anything.

Great....thanks Vince!

Shikaroka · Jan 22, 2015

I wouldn't bench test them.
Sometimes the tip will swell, then they won't fit in the head.

giuliocn · Feb 8, 2015

Hello everybody. I’m new here.
I have an Audi A3 2.0 TDI s-tronic DPF 2007 (engine code : BMN).
I got this error: 001652 - Cylinder 4 Glow Plug Circuit (Q13) - P0674 - 006 - Electrical Fault - Intermittent - MIL ON.
I erased this error few times, but it come back after few days.

My car has difficulty starting after sitting overnight in cold weather.

I checked all 4 glow plugs with multimeter: they are about 0.5 ohms.
Like you can see on the video posted, my 4 glow plugs seem to work fine.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9sV63rx5Xs

Why am I getting this error P0674? Why my car has difficulty starting after sitting overnight in cold weather?

Thanks

BobnOH · Feb 9, 2015

Should be the harness.
http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/17058/P0674/001652

giuliocn · Feb 10, 2015

Ok, thank you, I will check and let you know.
Does somebody have glow plugs wiring diagram for my engine (2007 tdi 170 engine code : BMN) ?

fgm2006 · Feb 10, 2015

Just what I was looking for (I think

). Thanks so much for putting this together!

NewLyme · Feb 10, 2015

Does anyone have any experience with Champion glow plugs? Napa Auto parts has them for $14.xx and the Dealer has plugs for $47.34, (don't know what brand). I believe that you get what you pay for. I would rather not change them every couple months.

ymz · Feb 10, 2015

NewLyme said:
Does anyone have any experience with Champion glow plugs? Napa Auto parts has them for $14.xx and the Dealer has plugs for $47.34

Napa doesn't have the correct glow plugs for your car. Different ones are used in different vintages of TDIs...

Yuri

NewLyme · Feb 10, 2015

ymz said:
Napa doesn't have the correct glow plugs for your car. Different ones are used in different vintages of TDIs...

Yuri

Thanks.
I thought that may be the case with that low of a price.

tdismithville · Feb 15, 2015

NewLyme said:
Does anyone have any experience with Champion glow plugs? Napa Auto parts has them for $14.xx and the Dealer has plugs for $47.34, (don't know what brand). I believe that you get what you pay for. I would rather not change them every couple months.

I just bought a set of 4 glow plugs for my 2006 Golf tdi for $41 from idparts.com. Amazing deal. I installed them Thursday, just before the deep freeze hit southern Ontario. Seem to be working ok, even though I only read 5.8V at each finger of the harness ( they're 7V plugs ). Keeping my fingers crossed

Mtirado17 · Feb 23, 2015

Just got a Golf mk4 and I've been doing a lot of repurchasing and I haven't seen a remedy. When the check light came on scanned it and boom P0380... So I replaced the plugs and harness cleared the code and 200 miles went by and them light came back on. It won't clear out now and I'm confused what's going on. I've been told aftermarket plugs are not always favorable in VW and they can be temperamental in that regard. I am not sure what else to do. Any suggestions?

cleaver · Feb 24, 2015

I would test your glow plugs to make sure they are all in the correct range of resistance. (see first post in this thread).

hvymetal86 · Feb 24, 2015

Thank you so much for the detailed write up in this thread! I am having cold start issues when temps are under ~20F and was easily able to find a bad glow plug. My multimeter and I did the rest! I'll be replacing it tomorrow night.

cobra390t · Mar 13, 2015

Can you only change the bad Plug . The rest tested and passed resistance ohms with zero carbon build up . It's a debate between me and my good TDI friend

rdkern · Mar 13, 2015

Maybe you can change one plug. Might even work, if it's close enough in ohms (both cold and hot) to the others, and the old one comes out easily.

If they are all 150K old, you might as well do them all.

Red Dragon · May 19, 2015

Thanks for the how-to! Now time to apply new knowledge.

leegravel · Jun 13, 2015

checking the relay

After unplugging the coolant temp sensor and checking the voltage in each finger of the harness, all fingers gave me a reading of 10.35 volts for about 3 seconds, and then dropped to 4.95 for about 15 seconds. Following the drop to 4.95, all but 1 of the fingers fell to 0.0. The one finger that still had a reading was showing .08. Any clues? My gp all read fine, and my fuses, if done correctly were showing about 12.45 on each. I don't know where to go from here.

Vince Waldon · Jun 13, 2015

Given that you have a 2005 (and hence pulse-width-modulated voltage to the plugs IIRC) those numbers seem pretty normal when measured with a standard multimeter... more-or-less full power initially, and then 15 seconds of reduced power (so-called "afterglow"), and then nothing. I suspect the 0.08 reading is just a red herring... 8/100 of a volt could be anything, and probably well within the accuracy of your meter.

Perhaps back up just a bit and tell us what symptoms you're trying to resolve?

leegravel · Jun 13, 2015

Vince Waldon said:
Given that you have a 2005 (and hence pulse-width-modulated voltage to the plugs IIRC) those numbers seem pretty normal when measured with a standard multimeter... more-or-less full power initially, and then 15 seconds of reduced power (so-called "afterglow"), and then nothing. I suspect the 0.08 reading is just a red herring... 8/100 of a volt could be anything, and probably well within the accuracy of your meter.

Perhaps back up just a bit and tell us what symptoms you're trying to resolve?

P0672, cylinder 2 but I checked all the glow plugs and they read fine. However I am not sure that I unplugged the correct coolant temp sensor, since I got the same reading with the sensor plugged in and unplugged. The only thing I know is that the gp icon on the dash remained lit longer with the sensor unplugged.

Vince Waldon · Jun 13, 2015

leegravel said:
P0672, cylinder 2 but I checked all the glow plugs and they read fine. However I am not sure that I unplugged the correct coolant temp sensor, since I got the same reading with the sensor plugged in and unplugged. The only thing I know is that the gp icon on the dash remained lit longer with the sensor unplugged.

Just checking... by "read fine" they were all within 1/10 of an ohm of each other, using a pretty good multimeter?

I ask because the system is very sensitive... on purpose.

In any event, one thing you can try is swap, say, glowplugs 2 and 4, and then see if the problem follows the glow plug or stays with the harness.

If it follows the glow plug, replace it. If it stays with the harness, you can try some DeOxit.

Glow plugs 101 ***Ver. 2.0***

Veteran Member

Veteran Member

Active member

Veteran Member

Active member

Top Post Dawg

Active member

Veteran Member

Active member

Top Post Dawg

Active member

Veteran Member

New member

not-a-mechanic

New member

Well-known member

Veteran Member

Top Post Dawg

Veteran Member

Active member

New member

Veteran Member

New member

Veteran Member

Top Post Dawg

Member

Active member

Top Post Dawg

Active member

Top Post Dawg

Glow plugs 101 Ver. 2.0