Hi. An ignorant newbie here. My Felicia 1.9 Diesel (old car but new to me - first diesel I've owned) worked fine until yesterday evening when it would not start. Put a big battery charger on it to maintain the battery through many start attempts and eventually it started. (It had to - it was blocking other vehicles in....) Today it again won't go. Plenty of diesel, the glow plugs are showing a feed of 12v is present when it should be.

After several attempts huge smell and white smoke out the exhaust but not a single firing stroke. So what's up?

Are you getting fuel to the injectors?

Sounds like it could be the immobilizer in the injection pump.

Hi Lummox, Thanks for that suggestion but what does the immobiliser look like and how can I get round it? (Later Edit - there is no immobiliser fitted on the vehicle itself so I am not seeking how to bypass an anti-theft device!) PS. RAC just arriving so we will see what they make of it.............

Cheers, Busman

Sounds to me like some of the glow plugs aren't working. Check the resistance across them. As you have 12V to them it rules out the 50A fuse which due to the annount of current fatigues and blows.

You could try giving it a few glow cycles (ignition on wait for the orange pigs tail to go out, ignition off then on again and repeat) before you try to start it.

sounds like faulty glow plugs to me .

Thanks for the comments re glow-plugs. Will update when the truth is revealed....

After several attempts huge smell and white smoke out the exhaust but not a single firing stroke. So what's up?

normally on a diesel engine you only get white smoke out when either you've filled it up with petrol or the head gasket is blown.

and besides from that it should start even without the glowplugs working.

You will get white smoke from a blown head gasket due to the fact that you have water in the fuel you are burning. You can get water in the fuel tank from a crap fuel station (done it before). This produces white smoke out of the rear, and you can get a greyish smoke out of the back if you put an oil that is massively too thin in as you are burning tiny amounts of it.

I suggest draining or changing the fuel filter as this will remove a large amount of water from the system. (When was this last drained/changed). Also if this is the case I would suggest going to a decent fuel station and filling the tank up when you get the thing started just to dilute the water in the tank with derv.

Re the glows could be but a few cycles should fix it enough to start. If it is the glows they are fairly easy to change

There were volts at the glowplugs but no current. All four were dead. The white smoke was unburned warm diesel. (Not warm enough to ignite but warm enough from starter motor driven compression to waft out the exhaust.) If the bus won't start in the cold it does the same. The RAC man couldn't start it either until he resorted to the smallest possible whiff of 'Easystart' and off it went immediately.

I've changed all the glowplugs (not that easy; I found one had to remove all the injection pipes to gain access) and it seems fine (but then it hasn't had to start from dead cold yet....).

Thanks for all the ideas, folks! Cheers, Busman

PS Tried it cold this evening; absolutely instant start. So the glowplugs must have dyed in turn until there was only one left working. As the car was new to me I didn't know it should start better than it was. Positively amazing now......