Hi all. I have noticed in these pastweeks that my 110 Octavia is finding it considerably harder to start and once started, runs quite lumpy for 20 seconds or so and smokes quite heavily until slowly it clears it's self up taking around a minute. This only happens on cold starts.

Now I know that we are getting to winter and all that, but I don't recall this happening last year when we had as low as -7 nights, it always started without hesitation. I'm letting the plugs warm up sufficiently and it gets a good blast every now and again to keep things as de-coked as possible.

Upon warm engine restarts, it copes absolutely fine, starting easily with no smoke or poor running. Could this be that one of the glow plugs has failed resulting in unburnt fuel and lumpy running until said cylinder has warmed up? Or could It be a prelude to something more sinister happening? I'm getting no unusual lights on the dash and it's not horrendous (yet) but the first minute or so of driving feels... not right and the smoke is quite embarrassing when in the past it has seemed a rather clean burner (for a diesel!) until it has cleared it's self up.

It goes without saying that the engine is serviced regularly and the car wants for nothing (except a wash it seems)

Many thanks.

Very likely to be one or more glowplugs failed. Easy to check with a meter (they should be less than 1 ohm - usually fail open circuit or very large resistance (1k+). Easy to change the plugs if its like the 90bhp AHU (which is the same engine as the 110 but with a different turbo). Just take off the engine cover and then pull off the busbar rail running to the plugs - note it takes a damn good yank to remove. Only really need to change the one(s) that failed.

Edited 20 October, 201015 yr by xman