I’ve got a citroen van with the 1.4hdi diesel engine. Every now again when starting it will idle quite rough for around 10- 15 seconds accompanied by some blue ish smoke then it works fine for the rest of the journey. Has had regular oil and filter services every 6-8000 miles and has done around 45000 miles. Should I be worried?

(clearly I’m not an expert, I’ve spent the last 6 months asking STW how to fix my car, but)

It sounds glowpluggy. Does it do it when starting from warm?

Traditionally you say white = diesel burning in the exhaust, blue = engine oil but ime diesel can be fairly bluey grey too so I don’t want to fixate too much on colour if it’s just blue-ish.

I’d agree with glow plugs too. Mine had similar symptoms and thought it was going to be injectors. Thought I’d try the the glow plugs on the off chance it maybe them to 3 out of 4 not working. Car starts and runs a lot smoother since.

If it does it when cold starting I concur, glow plugs. But its summer, so it shouldn’t be using glow plugs at all…I reckon its something else.

It does it more when starting from cold but not always as it happened earlier when the engine was warm after filling up at the garage. I’ve been keeping an eye on the dipstick but it doesn’t appear to be burning oil despite the smoke issue. Might try changing the glowplugs but would a diagnostic test be able to show up a dodgy injector?

You can do a ‘leak off’ test on the injectors, I believe its fairly simply and is a good indicator as to if they are working correctly, by measuring the amount of fuel leaving the injector. A quick google will surely give some guides.

What is the idle rev value when its doing this ?

Vs the normal idle rev value.

mine vw did this earlier this month … and yup, glow plug … so even
though it’s summer you still need a glow plug on first start up 🙂

My 2 litre HDI barely uses the glow plugs in winter. Do these newer HDIs rely on them more?

sounds more like a lack of pressure at start up to me. Is the battery in good shape? Does it seem to take a bit more to get it to fire than it used to?

It’s as easy to change glow plugs on a diesel as spark plugs on a petrol engine.

And how would you know that andyl ?

Glow plugs are no longer just for starting the engine the light is a poor indicator of what your glowplug circuit is doing.

Usually find they are on for about 5-10minutes after start up in some capacity.

Glow plugs CAN be easy to change….heaps of newer engines need the inlet manifold taken off and then because glow plugs dinnae come out often and subject to lots of heat cycles its not unusual to find they are rock solid.

Not saying its hard but just give the job the respect it deserves. Ive seen it fecked up many a time.

Test the glow plugs, it’s really easy. Just be careful you don’t burn yourself. A thermometer and checking them against the specs will tell you if they’re gone or not.