Hi guys;

 

I purchased a mk3 Ovtavia VRS TDI estate last week (love the car, a great improvement over my fiesta ST!) and im not too sure if i have an underlying issue at play.  

 

Long story short, the last few mornings when the temperature around the car is roughly 5 - 11 degrees , the engine feels like it struggles to start.  When i get in the car in the morning i turn the ignition and and leave it on for roughly 30 secs whistle i connect my phone to the Bluetooth, set the heating up etc before i attempt to start the car up.  It takes roughly 5 - 10 sec's for the car to tick over and start. Once the car starts it drives perfectly with no lumpiness or juddering and No engine light / glow plug lights. When i drive home in the afternoon the car starts perfectly with no issues and if my other half uses the car in the evening there's no issues, just seems to be cold morning starts.

 

Could this be an issue with the injectors with the cold weather, or is there probably something more sinister at play?

Are the heater plugs activated when you first unlock the car? I'm wondering if by the time you have connected your phone etc, the heater plugs have cooled down so is harder to start. I would be interested to know how they work on modern Skoda cars, on my work van you turned on the ignition and waited about 15 seconds for the heater plug light to go out, but on my Octavia I have never seen any heater plug lights, I just get in and start it straight away and she fires straight up.

Welcome.

Something is clearly not right because 5-11*oC is hardly cold weather.

 

So where did you buy it, & what is its age and miles and servicing history?

Check your battery. But it happens to me some times two. Even after replacing the battery still sometimes but much rarely.

Even though I don't think this is a glow plug issue, you really aren't helping matters by turning on the ignition and then not starting the car straight away. You are effectively wasting the pre-glow of the heater plugs, so its not good practice.

 

Also, the more things you turn on before you start the car the more the battery is going to struggle to provide current to the starter, its best to start the car right away as that way things like the heater blower hasn't turned on yet and had chance to drag the battery voltage down.

11 hours ago, Awayoffski said:

Welcome.

Something is clearly not right because 5-11*oC is hardly cold weather.

 

So where did you buy it, & what is its age and miles and servicing history?

 

 

Thanks for the reply guys. The car was purchased from motorline dartford, it's a 14 plate with 31,000 miles and full service history.

 

I didn't realise the glow plug system only came on for roughly 15 secs, I'll try to start the car immediately and see if that cures the issue, as by looking at the replies I'm making a mistake by fiddling with all the gizmos before starting.

Edited 5 April, 20179 yr by VRSrobster

Yes I would always say it is best to turn on ign and then start the engine asap,any delay and the cold start system would probably 'time out',I usually start the engine and then buckle up and set gizmos etc.

It is a good starting point anyway - if you excuse the pun : )

If you still have probs (as Offski posted) then you may have to dig a little deeper.

There should not be any problems with the way you start the car (ign on & wait vs Direct Start).

Modern diesel engines use quick heat glow plugs which take only a few seconds to be at maximum temperature even at very cold ambient temperature.

The ECU will manage if it needs to use the glow plugs when you request an engine start.

e.g.

If you ignition on, without clutch depressed, the glow plugs wont necessarily be activated.

The software can wait until you depress the clutch (pre-empting a start) or can wait until you press the start button (as the glow plugs will only delay the start by 1s).

 

 

For the slow starting issue, there was a software upgrade for some of the TDI engines to resolve long cranking time.

If I remember right there was a TSB number in one of the other threads specifically for the vRS TDI.

I'll see if I can find it.

Hi, my 2.0 14 plate diesel used to struggle to start until it had a new battery fitted at 2.5years and 70K miles.

 

My battery was damaged when I left a phone charger plugged in when parked up at the airport, it never started the same after that.

 

Correct starting is to turn key to position 2 momentarily and releasing to position 1, when the glowplug light goes out the engine will start.

I always like to keep things simple myself - the ign system will be designed to work in the normal way - ie you turn ign 'on' and then start the engine as soon as the glow plug light goes out - any car designer will not expect the driver to do anything different to that,the ecu or whatever controls the glow plug system will not keep waiting for the driver to start the engine - at a certain time period - the glow plug system will 'time out' and then you would need to switch 'off' and then 'on' again to reset the starting sequence.

8 hours ago, YS53 said:

I always like to keep things simple myself - the ign system will be designed to work in the normal way - ie you turn ign 'on' and then start the engine as soon as the glow plug light goes out - any car designer will not expect the driver to do anything different to that,the ecu or whatever controls the glow plug system will not keep waiting for the driver to start the engine - at a certain time period - the glow plug system will 'time out' and then you would need to switch 'off' and then 'on' again to reset the starting sequence.

 

Maybe cars 15 years ago.

Modern cars including the Octavia control the starter motor & glow plugs via software in the ECU.

They decide themselves when glowing is required & wait before activating the starter.

The ECU will model or measure the temperature of the glow-plug & if you have a delay before start will know the time needed to "top-up" the temperature before engaging the starter.

 

All the driver needs to do is tap the start button or flick the key to start then release.

As the glowplugs heat so quickly at normal températures, you often dont notice the short glowing delay.

If you attempt to start at -30°C you will see perhaps a 3-4s pause before engaging the starter, all controlled by the ECU with nothing to do for the driver.

Hi Gabbo.

As I say - I always like to keep things simple - from the drivers manual (inc stop start models)

 

 

Quote

For vehicles with diesel engines, the glow plug warning light  illuminates during starting. The engine can be started after the indicator light goes out.

 

I understand about the modern engines but surely it will always be better to start the engine immediately that the glow plug light goes out,that is the way the cold start system will be expected to be operated !

Even on older diesels - just because the glow plug light goes out does not mean that the glows switch off,they are still operated by the system until the ecu is happy that the engine no longer needs them 'on' to assist the engine running smoothly etc.

The over cranking problem has been around for ages.

 

I've seen Audi's, VW's and Skoda's all do precisely the same thing (same engine, no surprise).

 

As someone else has said, Skoda released a software fix that some people have managed to get them to apply - it worked for some but not for others.

 

I've not managed to get my dealer to apply it yet...until they can reproduce it they refuse...and it's only very intermittent for me.

Dealer applied the SW fix on mine and it seemed to fix the intermittent long cranking.

But after a month or so it started to do the same thing again: on every 3rd day or so it needs 2-3 seconds to fire up the engine. No idea what happens here. Engine control module was updated for sure, checked with VCDS.

It's a bit better with the new SW but still far from perfect.

Edited 6 April, 20179 yr by aki78

my over cranking experience isw really up to 20k miles it was happening frequently so i moaned alot to the dealer but they were not that interested as they couldnt repoduce it. gave them, the software fix reference and skoda said iot wasnt applicable to my car. over time it seemed to disappear, now at 60k and its returned but not as often nor as severe as before - its just odd 

Aki/John, do you remember the TSB reference for the software update?

I can't seem to find the thread with it in.

3 hours ago, Gabbo said:

Aki/John, do you remember the TSB reference for the software update?

I can't seem to find the thread with it in.

 

Mine still does it after update. I think the software update was 320F over cranking.

Hopefully VRSrobster will update us on any starting issues at some stage ! 

7 hours ago, YS53 said:

Hopefully VRSrobster will update us on any starting issues at some stage ! 

 

I've given it a few days of trying to start the engine almost immediately after flicking the ignition on.

 

Whilst the mornings are still about 5 degrees, It starts almost immediately with maybe about 2 secs of cranking now, so it was me being a wally and leaving the ignition on. 

 

It still doesn't fire into life straight away but looking at some of the replies when it goes in for its MOT I'll be inquiring about the software fix, even if it does look like they seem rather reluctant to install it.

2 secs of cranking is not necessarily a bad thing Rob - gets the oil circulating before the engine fires up,I have a very vague memory that some engines used to have an ignition delay for that reason,not saying it was on VW engines but at least it looks like you do not have a serious problem at the moment.

 

rgds baz

Edited 8 April, 20179 yr by YS53

In all diesel vehicles I've always turned the key to position 1 and waited for the glow light to turn off and then immediately turned the key to position 2 to start the ignition. Never had any issues or long delays when doing this.

My 2014 vRS TDI started to occasionally over crank when cold, taking around 4 seconds to start - quite alarming at first as I wasn't sure it would fire but it always did. Not to be expected in a new(ish) motor.

 

Tried waiting for glow plugs but no different, the engine controller sorts it all out anyway.

 

Took a video of it playing up and the supplying dealer agreed to inspect the car yesterday, no faults logged but the video was proof enough, they let me know there was a engine controller update for this (must be the 320F) and they said it would take 30 minutes to install. Couple of free coffees and a mooch around a Kodiaq (electrically released hidden tow bar!) and all done.

 

So far so good, engine seems keen to start but more noticeable is that the engine appears to be smoother / quieter. SHMBO agrees so it must be better. The engine was originally quite harsh when cold and always seemed a bit noisy (rattly) for a diesel, but it's now much better and more like I'd expect. May be it's the ambient temperatures being higher but it's definitely an improvement.

 

it would be interesting to know what was adjusted- fuelling, timing, glow plug heating level etc.

 

Fingers crossed it stays like this.

Just an update from me on this topic;

 

I had the car checked over by a local VW/SKODA/SEAT specialist when i had the REVO stage 1 map installed. The technician told me my car had the same ECU software from factory and hadn't had the small minor updates it was due over its previous servicing schedule. He updated the system software and the over cranking seems to have dissipated (5 weeks ago and still nothing). It might of been maybe the previous owner missed a small update to the ECU, as the technician did a error code lookup and found nothing being flagged up code-wise.