Clean diesel is a pain V2.0

[ZetaTre]

Originally Posted by primeral

I don't anticipate any glow plug problem, as that was replaced at a BMW dealership prior to my purchase of the vehicle 15 months ago. If it's a new glow plug problem, I'm unaware of it.

Could you articulate this? Was it the glowplug module that failed or individual glowplugs?

In Euro cars failed glow plugs do not trigger a CEL; I'm unsure of US since I've never had any glowplug problem with mine.

I'm uncertain whether there is a direct cause-effect relationship between bad glowplugs and clogged DPF (examples of direct cause-effect could be that a glowplug code stored in the DDE stops the regen or the glowplugs are used to increase the EGT).

However multiple bad glowplugs are just another symptom of a failed thermostat: when the coolant temperature is below 75C the DDE enrich the fuel mixture to accelerate warmup and uses the glowplug (under part-load) to facilitate combustion and reduce soot. If the thermostat fails and the coolant temperature drops below 75C the DDE goes in "engine warmup mode": this results in high fuel consumption and overloads the glowplugs that blow. In essence, in our engine glowplugs are not used only for startup, but they are used as part of an emission controlling strategy under certain circumstances.

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