Hi everyone. I'm posting on behalf of my dad. He has a 1998 Merc 250 TD (OM 605) which has covered 55k miles. It's a UK car, owned by him since 2007.
On cold starting, the engine is very rough and the heater plug lamp on the instrument cluster stays illuminated for around 2 minutes before extinguishing. The engine also runs poorly during this the time that the heater plugs lamp is on.
We're used to diesel engines and everything points to one (or more) of the heater plugs being duff. However, I've read some terrible stories about these plugs snapping and stripping in the head when you try to remove them (as far as we know these have been in there since 1998!).
So, dad has been applying PlusGas to the tops of the plugs for a few weeks now (the car is not being used) but he's keen to find out how the wire to the top of the plugs is removed(?) so that he can get a better look at things before he even starts to apply any socket to the top of any of the plugs.
Can anyone advise on whether we're right on this or whether it is likely to be the heater plug control unit or relay that's throwing things out?
Any advice - or links to articles on this - would be very much appreciated.
Thanks!
Adrian.
On cold starting, the engine is very rough and the heater plug lamp on the instrument cluster stays illuminated for around 2 minutes before extinguishing. The engine also runs poorly during this the time that the heater plugs lamp is on.
We're used to diesel engines and everything points to one (or more) of the heater plugs being duff. However, I've read some terrible stories about these plugs snapping and stripping in the head when you try to remove them (as far as we know these have been in there since 1998!).
So, dad has been applying PlusGas to the tops of the plugs for a few weeks now (the car is not being used) but he's keen to find out how the wire to the top of the plugs is removed(?) so that he can get a better look at things before he even starts to apply any socket to the top of any of the plugs.
Can anyone advise on whether we're right on this or whether it is likely to be the heater plug control unit or relay that's throwing things out?
Any advice - or links to articles on this - would be very much appreciated.
Thanks!
Adrian.