Coolant glow plugs - useless in warm climates?

[pkhoury]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but are the coolant glow plugs useless in warm climates? I unplugged mine when I did my timing belt and keep forgetting to plug them back in. Saw them today when I had an unrelated heater core hose flange crack on me (and I lost most of my coolant). I'm thinking of just putting that fabric-type electrical tape (forgot the proper name for it) over each connector.

 

[scooperhsd]

I suppose they aren't strictly necessary anywhere - I had a 5 speed conversion done on my Automatic Beetle and I haven't had any issues. They should help the coolant warm up faster.

 

[jettawreck]

Pretty much useless in warm climate and probably mostly an emissions device even in cold areas. They do help warm the coolant a bit quicker but how much is very hard to say or determine.

 

[oilhammer]

They help with post cold start emissions, even in "warm" weather (70F or so), which is why they come on AFTER the engine is started.

It was 67F this morning here for me, and my 2000 was happily afterglowing for a couple miles.

 

[JB05]

Friction tape is what the OP is suggesting. The stuff I have is gooey. I don't think the coolant GP's come on all at once. They are controlled by two different relays IIRC.

 

[oilhammer]

My bad, I thought he was talking about the engine glow plugs, I missed the coolant part. I forget what the controlling parameters are for those.

 

[pkhoury]

Haha yeah, Brian. The coolant glow plugs. Engine glow plugs are pretty handy, hot or cold. I have 2 IDI tractors without glow plugs, and one with presumed low compression can be a b!tch to start in cold weather (the other is much easier to get running, but I think it has better compression).

So the coolant glow plus - yay or nay?

 

[oilhammer]

Well I wouldn't intentionally disable them, if that is what you mean. But I might not make it a priority to check and make sure they are working I suppose if I lived where it never got very cold.

 

[burpod]

Living in New England, a mild climate, I cannot tell any difference with them disabled or not. Either in my ahu or pd powered cars. Perhaps they make a slight difference but undetectable to the driver.. I have noticed the pd, at least mine, are much slower to warm up than my ahu cars, which I presume would be pretty similar to alh in that respect.

 

[jmodge]

My Jetta will begin defrosting the windshield shortly after starting it. Not to a useful enough point to drive it safely, but a small opening appears at the bottom of the windshield. I assume it’s the work of the coolant Glow plugs

 

[oilhammer]

Pod, yours are all modded... probably not the same. I know my stock ALH with its EGR and cooler intact and working not only as cabin heat much faster it maintains a steady temp much more easily in the cold than my otherwise nearly identical ALH but with no EGR or cooler. I even put a hotter (92C) thermostat in the EGR-less one.

 

[csstevej]

If VW put them there , its probably for a reason.

Just like the foam on the blend doors .

 

[oilhammer]

The foam covers the holes in the doors. If it wasn't there, the air would just blow right through.

We could certainly talk for hours (I probably could talk for days, being in the service industry) about dumb or seemingly useless designs and such on cars though. But, if you wanted a "perfect" and "would never break and last forever" car, it would probably cost you several million dollars and all the companies would already be out of business. So....

 

[csstevej]

Ohhh I’m now looking for forever……but not to fail quickly would be nice , or designed with some foresight would also have been good . The foam door could have been solid and not perforatEd and covered with something that’s going to deteriorate when subjected to approx 190 f temps…….. that alone would have saved thousands of man hours…..

 

[burpod]

True, none of mine have egr, I forgot about that. It was so long ago, I can't remember how warmup times were back when it was stock and living in MN. Although I feel like I remember that disabling the egr didn't have a huge impact.. shrug.

 

[pkhoury]

Just like the foam on the blend doors .

The foam on the doors was done so @alphaseinor would get rich selling 3d printed plug kits on ebay.

Pod, yours are all modded... probably not the same. I know my stock ALH with its EGR and cooler intact and working not only as cabin heat much faster it maintains a steady temp much more easily in the cold than my otherwise nearly identical ALH but with no EGR or cooler. I even put a hotter (92C) thermostat in the EGR-less one.

For what it's worth, all of my cars are modded as well. The only diesels I own that are bone stock are my D905-based genset and my Ford tractors. Everything else is pretty extensively modded.

 

[csstevej]

The foam on the doors was done so @alphaseinor would get rich selling 3d printed plug kits on ebay.

Lol I bought 3 kits from him so far…

 

[Vwkaferman]

The foam on the doors was done so @alphaseinor would get rich selling 3d printed plug kits on ebay.

Ha, thanks! Did not know those existed. Bonus, he's from my hometown, if he see's this thread, I graduated in Burk. Ordered a set today.

James

 

[Wilkins]

IIRC the coolant glow plugs only come on when the coolant is below 5 C or maybe it’s -5 C. I used to wonder why in winter the car warmed up so much faster on my way home from work than in the morning when it had been sitting in the ‘warm’ garage overnight.

 

[Vince Waldon]

Yup, -5C... and there's a below-freezing ambient temperature requirement as well. If triggered they run until the coolant gets to about 50C, but only using one of the three plugs while the glow plugs are running for the first few minutes of engine run time.

I have a green monitoring LED on my dash here in the great white north and my ALH ones trigger when both criterion are met but my BEW never does. Hooked up a manual overide for the BEW and in general can't say I see much different in warm-up time... but we get -30C so maybe too much to expect from 3x10 amps x14 volts or 400 watts of heat into a very cold engine block.

T'were my car I'd not worry about 'em running... only leaking.