Hi People

This is going to be a bit of a long story so I'll put the salient points first, with the horror of the back story to follow.

I have a Fabia 2006 1.4 TDI PD that after being left for 3 hours takes about 10 seconds of cranking with plenty of white blueish smoke out the back. The engine appears to catch very quickly, but if you then stop cranking it will die immediately. This is irrespective of how much gas you give it (i'll post a video). The best way seem to be avoid the initial kick and keep cranking , foot very lightly on the gas, eventually it will start to pick up. The cold weather doesn't appear to effect it that much and after running for 20 sects will start again first kick. Blue white smoke disappears after start up.

Th garage are at a loss and tell me to leave it, as I could be wasting lots of money chasing the problem. So far they have replace relay, fuel filter, checked for air leaks and replaced glow plugs but no avail.

Its actually my wife's car and as she works shift, she is extremely worried that it is going to let her down, although it has never failed to start yet. Her fear is more borne out of the engine dying on her on the M1 fast lane. Both turbo and engine knackered, after only 3 months of ownership :(

Another bit of additional info is that occasionally I get the temp light beeping on start up. Once restating the engine starts this goes away,

Any help will be really appreciated , I really don't want to sell the car after spending 2k fixing it.

Back Story of Engine Exploding !!

We bought this car some 3 months ago, it had been regularly serviced from new, timing belt replaced, yada yada. One day my wife as diving the car down the fast lane of the M1 doing 70 , engine lost power ( no smoke ) then died. We suspected turbo, when the garage examined it , the big end had gone and the engine & turbo where fit for the bin.

Got another engine, cost £1000, fitting was £500 but the car had a mis-fire, so injector loom was replaced. This cure this mis-fire along with timing belt, glow plugs, water pump and sundries came to £760 garage bill.

Got the car back ( I noticed the starting issue at this point) it ran for £22 miles , then engine revved like mad, loads of blue white smoke then engine died. Checked the oil, the fluid level was 6 times what it should have been !! It turned out injector seals had leaked diesel into the sump.

Another £250 later for new seals and labour. This brings me up to date, as you can see my first experience of Skoda has been a very bad one !

Ouch ! You have been unlucky all the way round.

Assuming that the compression is OK, the poor starting symptoms are either going to be air in the fuel or failure of the glowplug system. You'll need a diesel garage to do an overnight pressure test for air. My money is on the glowplugs even if they have replaced the plugs and relay. First check that the engine earths are good, clean and tight and the battery top fuse is clean and tight. Can you take out a plug? First check that it is the right one and then clamp/jam it onto an earthed part of the engine (don't hold it)? If so do this and turn on ignition - does it glow brightly? The second part is when the engine is starting and this is harder to do, but probably not necessary.

Interesting, if they have tiited the wrong plugs could it really make that much difference. I have noticed this fault even since we got the car back. They say they have done a compresion test and say its good. Since the glow plugs seem easy to do I'll have look tis weekend. Do you know what they should be off hand. How much would the pressure test cost too