I wanted to share my experience of the emissions warning light as reading these forums I could not find my issue. 

I have a late 2015 Superb Business 2.0, Always Skoda serviced. Currently, with 68k on the clock and only serviced last month. 

 

Driving to work I get the warning light appear. I pull over. Switch off, wait, restart, still there. So I continue my journey to work. Check these forums but none the wiser. On the way home the light stays on again. So a quick call to Skoda Winchester. They advise a check. £100 to diagnose, then additional charges.

 

I also tried an independent who specialised in Skoda, Audi, VW and Seat.  Their cost £25 diagnostics. So I drove there. 10 minutes later and the diagnostics identified one fault, and this was due to a fault with number 1 glow plug. Without bothering to check with a Skoda dealer, I trusted this small independent to carry out the work. Cost £87 and collected the next day. 

 

The advice I was given was, glow plugs can develop a fault at any time. There are 4 plugs, 3 are the same and cheaper to purchase, however one is the main glow plug that is more expensive to replace, due to higher purchase price.(luckily for me this one did not fail)

 

So...68k and only one failed glow plug. I've had the car since 28k and that's my only fault out of warranty. Ran to work this morning and no engine warning lights on. So for me, problem fixed. 

 

Anyone else had glow plug faults?  Was this a good price to fix? Should glow plugs fail at all?
 

Did not have the issue yet but,,, was  good price as includes part and labour. On modern diesels glow-plugs are used not only at cold start in the mornings but also for DPF regeneration and other things, so what the garage said that could fail any time... was very accurate. Good thing you got it sorted fast as I said affects DPF regeneration ( for any fault, engine related, regeneration will not occur causing a clogged dpf and headaches along side a empty wallet and frustration).

7 hours ago, SpAwNtoHell said:

Did not have the issue yet but,,, was  good price as includes part and labour. On modern diesels glow-plugs are used not only at cold start in the mornings but also for DPF regeneration and other things, so what the garage said that could fail any time... was very accurate. Good thing you got it sorted fast as I said affects DPF regeneration ( for any fault, engine related, regeneration will not occur causing a clogged dpf and headaches along side a empty wallet and frustration).

Thanks for that reply. Glad to know I did the right thing and was not ripped off. 

On 13/09/2019 at 09:23, PMA_Bob said:

I wanted to share my experience of the emissions warning light as reading these forums I could not find my issue. 

I have a late 2015 Superb Business 2.0, Always Skoda serviced. Currently, with 68k on the clock and only serviced last month. 

 

Driving to work I get the warning light appear. I pull over. Switch off, wait, restart, still there. So I continue my journey to work. Check these forums but none the wiser. On the way home the light stays on again. So a quick call to Skoda Winchester. They advise a check. £100 to diagnose, then additional charges.

 

I also tried an independent who specialised in Skoda, Audi, VW and Seat.  Their cost £25 diagnostics. So I drove there. 10 minutes later and the diagnostics identified one fault, and this was due to a fault with number 1 glow plug. Without bothering to check with a Skoda dealer, I trusted this small independent to carry out the work. Cost £87 and collected the next day. 

 

The advice I was given was, glow plugs can develop a fault at any time. There are 4 plugs, 3 are the same and cheaper to purchase, however one is the main glow plug that is more expensive to replace, due to higher purchase price.(luckily for me this one did not fail)

 

So...68k and only one failed glow plug. I've had the car since 28k and that's my only fault out of warranty. Ran to work this morning and no engine warning lights on. So for me, problem fixed. 

 

Anyone else had glow plug faults?  Was this a good price to fix? Should glow plugs fail at all?
 

 

I had the same problem this June on my 2016 (2nd Feb registered) 190ps whilst on a short break to Dorset, no local dealers could (or would) help  got it back home with no running problems, just the engine management light on all the time! My local dealer diagnosed a failed glow plug & the cost to replace was £185 inclusive. I gave the go ahead, but they didn't have any in stock, as it was a none stock item, so would order it VOR for delivery next day

 

After a bit of research I found out that the OE plugs are Bosch ones, & they have a design life of 300,000 cycles, I did a quick calculation & worked out that it failed in less than 1% of its design life, I called Skoda Customer care & explained the problem, the first reaction from them was it's out of warranty, we can't help, I replied that 1. It failed at less than 1% of its design life. 2. Therefore it must have had a latent defect. 3. That I'm a retired Aftersales manager with over 45 years of service & over 30 years of that was with VW group vehicles. He said he would talk to the dealer. My dealer called me & said "I don't know who you spoke to or what you said, but they've not said that they would cover the whole of the relacement costs as a gesture of goodwill".

 

Yes the cost of replacing your glow plug was good. & yes they do fail, but not very often in relatively low mileage cars (In glow plug failure terms, 68k miles is low mileage!).

 

PS,  in my considered opinion, Winchester Skoda were taking the p1ss when quoting £100 just for the diagnosis! The company I worked for had the policy that the diagnosis charge would be waived if we carried out the repair, & if not the customer would only be charged for the time taken to diagnose the fault. Plugging in the ODIS & reading the error codes would have only taken 15 mins max, & checking continuity to the glow plug in question another 15 mins

Edited 30 September, 20196 yr by GeorgeB
Adding more info

Hello, i do not mean to be be disrespectful or anything like that but i would like to know how that 1% was calculated as.... It cannot be based on engine starts...

 

http://pics3.tdiclub.com/data/517/820433_EA288.pdf

 

Page 63-64....

 

This is a study not a workshop manual....

 

 

As for help on forums for actual tehnical solving matters( as a recent owner of a superb 2.0tdi) the info is sparse or this cars are bullet proof😂🤣...

7 hours ago, SpAwNtoHell said:

Hello, i do not mean to be be disrespectful or anything like that but i would like to know how that 1% was calculated as.... It cannot be based on engine starts...

 

http://pics3.tdiclub.com/data/517/820433_EA288.pdf

 

Page 63-64....

 

This is a study not a workshop manual....

 

 

As for help on forums for actual tehnical solving matters( as a recent owner of a superb 2.0tdi) the info is sparse or this cars are bullet proof😂🤣...

 

No you're not being disrespectful, as your question on how I reached my conclusion is a perfectly valid question.

 

Yes it was based engine starts, specifically on 2 cold (>24c) engine starts per day from date of regisration to date of failure. I used this equasion to guestimate the amount of >24c "cold" starts, even taking into account days when the car was not started (inc approx 180 days where it sat on the Skoda dealers (who I purchased the car from, the car was an ex Skoda staff car) forecourt. So you see that I over estimated the amount of starts, just to be on the safe side. My calculation  was that the failed glow plug on my car, was that it failed at less than 0.79% of the 300,000 cycle design life

 

As you may be aware, a diesel engine is a compression ignition engine, that is to say that the compression stroke rapidly heats the air contained in the cylinder, before atomised fuel is sprayed into the heated air, however, when the temperature is >5c the air in the cylinder cannot be heated sufficiently to cause the fuel to ignite. If you keep turning the engine over untill it eventually starts, all you've achieved is a complete waste of fuel & soaked the DPF with unburnt fuel!

 

So the primary function of a glow plug is to heat that cold air to a temperature that will support combustion. In an Euro 6 configuration, if the coolant is below >24 the glow plugs operate (on a cyclitic sequence) untill the coolant reaches <24C, this is only 1 of the measures that is used to reduce emmissions to enable the engine to be designated Euro 6 compliant.

 

According to Bosch, in the Euro 6 configuration, from start to finish is 1 cycle per >24c "cold" start.

 

Just 1 thing though, the glow plugs DO NOT play any part in the regeneration of the DPF. that is done by altering the fuel injection phasing (double phasing to raise exhaust temp by way of the additional unburnt fuel as a result of the second injection of fuel, to ignite within the catalytic converter & thus causing the raised temp of exhaust exiting the cat to burn off the particulates held within the DPF, which is "downstream" of the cat.

 

Hope that this explanation answers your question.

Edited 1 October, 20196 yr by GeorgeB
Additional info added

Excellent explanation GeorgeB...

No wonder they fall on their backs giving you reason :)). Fair play, especially i am pretty sure they do not know every bit of tehnical detail in their publications.

 

 

@GeorgeB  you've got < and > the wrong way round as far as I can tell.

> is "greater than",

< is "less than"

So a cold start would be temperature < 24°C

 

1 hour ago, GeorgeB said:

Just 1 thing though, the glow plugs DO NOT play any part in the regeneration of the DPF

I thought the same.

 

 

 

16 hours ago, GeorgeB said:

PS,  in my considered opinion, Winchester Skoda were taking the p1ss when quoting £100 just for the diagnosis! The company I worked for had the policy that the diagnosis charge would be waived if we carried out the repair, & if not the customer would only be charged for the time taken to diagnose the fault. Plugging in the ODIS & reading the error codes would have only taken 15 mins max, & checking continuity to the glow plug in question another 15 mins

 

Have you seen the guided fault finding test plan for the fault? Do you know what the DTE time recorded by ODIS was? I agree collection of the fault code data is pretty quick on a gateway system. As is following through to the start of the diagnostic procedure. The diagnostic machine will not check continuity to a glow plug as this is a poor electrical test, one wire can have continuity, that doesn't mean it will do the job it is meant to. A resistance check from the operating module to the glow plug would be the normal, and then connect the break out lead to the engine ECU and check the system from begining to end. The engine ECU is secured into its mounting bracket with tamper proof bolts that have to be cut off (and then replaced). If you think that can all be done in 15 minutes then you are barking mad.

 

£100 diagnostic fee will be something in the region of an hour inc VAT. Most places will charge something along the lines of 1/2 hour for a simple or common fault, but may decide to bump that to an hour to cover themselves for the extra time required to follow the test plan, generally there isn't much in between. As a side note warranty will pay the DTE time recorded by the diagnostic machine providing all test steps were followed to conclusion and they were all valid.

As seems like i am getting contradictory information, can anyone confirm what happens in the second a fault is registered as active( i this case glow plugs); as previously told regeneration will not be triggered and car will be in limp mode till any engine related fault is rectified.

 

I have been told this from different directions from people who work on vw diesel engines...

 

In the above case study is nothing about this neither in the workshop manual for repairs but i do not have a troubleshooting guide about this.

As seems like i am getting contradictory information, can anyone confirm what happens in the second a fault is registered as active( i this case glow plugs); as previously told regeneration will not be triggered and car will be in limp mode till any engine related fault is rectified.

 

I have been told this from different directions from people who work on vw diesel engines...

 

In the above case study is nothing about this neither in the workshop manual for repairs but i do not have a troubleshooting guide about this.

@SpAwNtoHell I think the reason for the confusion is that you said earlier

On 14/09/2019 at 09:54, SpAwNtoHell said:

On modern diesels glow-plugs are used not only at cold start in the mornings but also for DPF regeneration and other things

 

That sounded from the way you wrote it as if you believed the glowplugs had an active role in the regeneration process.

GeorgeB and myself believe this not to be the case, but that doesn't rule out an indirect effect of a faulty one on regens iff it is true that regens won't occur with engine fault conditions logged (no idea about this, myself).

4 hours ago, Wino said:

@SpAwNtoHell I think the reason for the confusion is that you said earlier

 

That sounded from the way you wrote it as if you believed the glow plugs had an active role in the regeneration process.

GeorgeB and myself believe this not to be the case, but that doesn't rule out an indirect effect of a faulty one on regens iff it is true that regens won't occur with engine fault conditions logged (no idea about this, myself).

 

2 things to note:

1. When/if the engine management light appears in the dash, depending on the ECU's perceived fault, if the ECU deems that it' serious enough, it will go into limp mode. I can vouch that 1 glow plug failing will bring up the engine management warning light, I can also vouch that it will NOT immediately put the car into limp mode (but take note of info in number 2). I drove my car over 100 miles with the engine management light on when the glow plug failed.

2. If the engine management light is on, regardless of the fault detected, regeneration of the DPF will NOT occur! , but if the DPF is sufficiently full of particulates you may find that your car will go into limp mode, if it does STOP driving & get the car recovered back to your preferred repairer, you'll have to get the fault rectified & you then may just get away with a "forced" regeneration, if that fails, then its a new DPF, & they are eye wateringly expensive!!!!

There are products & company's out there who claim to be able to "clean" blocked DPFs, but in my experience they either don't work or they have limited success.

My car (Superb L&K 190 4x4) is in the dealers currently having a glow plug changed. The emissions system light came on nearly 2 weeks ago but the car has been driven over 200 miles with no issues and it's done this before. The last time it did it was over a year ago and after about 4 days, it went out (funnily enough, the day before it was booked in to the garage to be looked at) and that was it until this time. Anyway, the dealers have just rung to say it was a glow plug. Hope it's not the expensive one with the pressure sensor in Cyl 3 🤞.

My 2016 Superb 150 SEL (53K miles) has developed a fault with number 4 glow plug. The glow plug has seized and the VAG garage cannot remove it, despite using plenty of penetrating oil. Has anyone experience the same? If so, what was done to remove the seized glow plug and how much did the repair cost?

30 minutes ago, noggin11 said:

despite using plenty of penetrating oil.

What does he mean by "penetrating oil"? I've known several garages who think that WD-40 and Duck Oil are penetrating oils, which is just wrong. What this job needs is a specialist dismantling lubricant such as PlusGas (NB, irregular capitalisation is significant here).

They've used PlusGas.

3 hours ago, noggin11 said:

They've used PlusGas.

They'll just have to keep dousing it in penetrating oil and very gently tightening and loosening, having the engine half warm can sometimes help too. 

Give us a clue then! Which one is the more expensive?

19 minutes ago, vRSG60 said:

Give us a clue then! Which one is the more expensive?

A sheared plug obviously, as the head will need to be removed to remove the remains, unless you're being a smart arse about something else...

On 01/10/2019 at 16:02, Wino said:

@SpAwNtoHell I think the reason for the confusion is that you said earlier

 

That sounded from the way you wrote it as if you believed the glowplugs had an active role in the regeneration process.

GeorgeB and myself believe this not to be the case, but that doesn't rule out an indirect effect of a faulty one on regens iff it is true that regens won't occur with engine fault conditions logged (no idea about this, myself).

Bit of an old post but I can assure you the glowplugs are part of the regen process. Exhaust gases have to reach a certain temp to assist with regen and glowplugs help this. Same way that the old way of thinking is a glowplug only is for cold starts. Not the case anymore, glowplugs are used constantly for emission control and dpf regens as well as cold starts. 

 

 

27 minutes ago, j caff said:

A sheared plug obviously, as the head will need to be removed to remove the remains, unless you're being a smart arse about something else...

Not necessarily, theres special tools to allow you to drill glowplugs out or recut threads without cylinder head removal. All depends on location  

1 hour ago, ApertureS said:

I can assure you the glowplugs are part of the regen process

You can assure me, but I'd be much more likely to believe it if you could show me somehow with some VCDS data or similar. 

 

On 13/09/2019 at 09:23, PMA_Bob said:

 

 

1 hour ago, j caff said:

A sheared plug obviously, as the head will need to be removed to remove the remains, unless you're being a smart arse about something else...

 

If you'd read the original post, 1 of the glow plugs is more expensive than the others. As it turns out it's number 3, counting from the left. This one has a pressure sensor on it, the other 3 don't.

 

Now who's the smart arse!

 

On 13/09/2019 at 09:23, PMA_Bob said:

 

The advice I was given was, glow plugs can develop a fault at any time. There are 4 plugs, 3 are the same and cheaper to purchase, however one is the main glow plug that is more expensive to replace, due to higher purchase price.(luckily for me this one did not fail)

 

 

1 hour ago, ApertureS said:

I can assure you the glowplugs are part of the regen process.

I've no doubt that you can, but short of dealership computer data or the original software I'll be hard to convince...

Edited 30 October, 20214 yr by KenONeill

3 hours ago, KenONeill said:

I've no doubt that you can, but short of dealership computer data or the original software I'll be hard to convince...

Here’s a direct link to Denso’s website, one of the main producers of engine components for *all* manufacturers 

 

they produce glow plugs, ecus, injectors and so much more.

 

https://www.denso-am.co.uk/news/latest-news/2019/deneur19_28_glow_plugs_and_emissions/

 

tells you all you need to know, inc how glow plugs are used during regens