Glow plug relay location - 2014 184 TDi

[BillyCool]

Sorry for my slow reply - I've been away

My car has been so much better. It has also been left at home for 5 days and in a Heathrow car park for the last 6 days. It started no problem both days.

@Radovan if you've sort of done the whole process of elimination, you may want to consider new glow plugs or at least the glow plug relay. Apparently these can get tired and impact the glow plug performance. I replaced mine when the glow plugs were changed. No idea if it actually made a difference.

I'm happy that mine is vastly improved with the battery change, but like others, I've had other things replaced as well.

 

[Radovan]

Hello all, update after two months - knock on the wood, the long cranking problem is 90% gone. It happened only 2-3 times since I've changed the charge air cooler (air-to-water intercooler). Only thing I've changed is that I've had tank or two of premium diesel if that changes anything

@Brian Gordon-Stables thanks for the reply, I'll check the relays at the next service

 

[Evo97]

Summer again and my first start of the day has a extended crank
No coolant loss so not sure it will be the charge cooler

 

[BillyCool]

Summer again and my first start of the day has a extended crank
No coolant loss so not sure it will be the charge cooler

I had another issue with my car at the end of last year. One day it just would not start and had a slow crank/flat battery. Very random, as had been fine the previous day. Got the AA out and he put jump leads and a booster pack on it and still not enough to get it going. He suggested maybe a `lazy` starter. Bought a new starter and fitted it myself. No difference. Thought maybe the less than 12m old battery was at fault. Got it recovered to my local garage for investigation. They called me to say "what's wrong with it?" - they put their booster pack on and it started first time!

So - they fitted a new battery and a new battery earth cable just to be safe.

I have not had a single long crank in 6 months. Car starts first time, every time.

The 3 variables:

• New starter motor - still wouldn't start even after fitting so think that's irrelevant.
• New battery - hard to say. The other battery that was 12m old is currently at home, fully charged and although I've not used it again, I'm not sure if that is at fault. My battery tester says it's fine.
• New battery earth lead - who knows. Why would this influence the long cranking?

Something has changed. It literally fires up first time, every time. Go figure.

The only other `possible` is that when the car came back it had forgotten some of my Carista modifications. I'm not sure if that is due to battery change or if they updated any other software when they coded in the new battery. Did an update `fix` something?

Either way - I've not had had a long crank since then. Quite bizarre really. It's like a different car.

 

[SuperV8]

Maybe the flat battery had enabled one/some of the modules/ecu's to re-set? Like a '3 pin reset'! turn in off and back on again! They are computers on wheels after all !

I still get semi regular - long crank cold starts. Maybe i'l try leaving my battery earth disconnected for a few hours!

Interesting that yours has been cured.

 

[BillyCool]

Maybe the flat battery had enabled one/some of the modules/ecu's to re-set? Like a '3 pin reset'! turn in off and back on again! They are computers on wheels after all !

I still get semi regular - long crank cold starts. Maybe i'l try leaving my battery earth disconnected for a few hours!

Interesting that yours has been cured.

I have no idea! All rather odd and I can't really explain it or understand what has changed. I'm very happy though to be free of the long crank scenario.

 

[SuperV8]

I have no idea! All rather odd and I can't really explain it or understand what has changed. I'm very happy though to be free of the long crank scenario.

Well that's an easy/free to test.

Have just done this 'global reset':

So i'll report back in a week or two to see if this cures my random long crank?
It started normally after this reset - but sample of 1x can't confirm if this helped as it usually does start fine (just long cranks 'sometimes')

 

[SuperV8]

Had to do this procedure to reset the one touch windows afterwards to get my comfort windows working:
TCS and TPMS all had warnings where were easy to clear with a drive and re-set TPMS.
Had a load of fault codes stored - which all cleared ok.

 

[SuperV8]

Had a long crank yesterday afternoon leaving work (5 seconds cranking) so this hasn't fixed it

 

[BillyCool]

Had a long crank yesterday afternoon leaving work (5 seconds cranking) so this hasn't fixed it

Bummer - I feel for you. Mine is still perfect (touch wood) and I have no idea why.

 

[Evo97]

Very strange isn’t it
This is my 4th summer of owning it and every time temps hit 25c we experience this long crank (4secs)
Think I will just have to live with it as uk based only have 4 weeks of summer

 

[SuperV8]

I filmed my last long crank on Monday - cranked for about 5 seconds and outside temp 16.5
This long crank was at 4:00pm after a day at work (not touched in the car park) and starting fine first thing 7:00am in that morning.

This is a normal start I get most of the time.
It has never not started - It always starts - just sometimes (less than 5% of the time) takes lots of cranking!

The intermittent nature is frustrating!