sprinter glow plug lights

[neilford.yz250f@tiscali.c]

i have a bad starting sprinter,the glow plug light on the dash comes on about 2 miles down the road and stays on for a while.It has been like this for about a year and never caused a problem starting.Now it wont fire up on a cold start,please get me going in the right direction where to start.

 

[Ellsy Tanners]

Its posssible only one glow plug was gone at first, now more have gone affecting starting. Check and replace any faulty glow plugs first then if theres still a problem it could be air in fuel?

 

[dava]

Year model?

 

[ANDYSPRINTERSUFFOLK]

Hi have similar Pre-Glow woe, August 2003 311 CDI Sprinter Mercedes Benz
Friday morning put some diesel in "Ipswich" , after leaving forecourt noticed that Pre-glow warning light came on & stayed on even with engine running?
Drove 20 miles home even after 3rd restart light came on with seconds of starting & stayed on,
after just 5 hours sitting on drive, van completely dead, no power even for central locking, alarm

Tried jump starting but altho enough power for dash not enough to turn over,

AA came , confirmed battery very low, tried boosting & found 76 amps in with immediate power drain of 40+ amps

no details on their laptop as to why warning light on (even handbook doesn't say why it is on & what to do)

AA disconnected relay under battery, drain now down to approx 14amps, taken into dealer for diagnostics, Any ideas|??

Failure a bit sudden,Any Link to fueling ??

 

[Bolide]

There's a short list of things that can draw that kind of current. No. 1 would be a near-short. No. 2 would be the glowplugs

I suggest the glowplug relay has stuck on and is draining the battery. I'd disconnect the switching feed that activates the glowplug relay, reconnect the battery and do some tests. If the current drain has gone check the switching feed to the relay and see if it's live. If it is, check upstream. If it's not then, logically, the fault's in the glowplug relay. To test, disconnect the glowplug output feed from the relay, reconnect the switching feed and check for volts at the glowplug output feeds

Hopefully the diagnosis will be multimeter-simple. The cure may not be. If the glowplug circuit is controlled by the ECU the simple test detailed may not give dependable results

You'll need a fully-charged battery to start this test

If the fault is only that the glowplug warning light comes on after a start, accompanied by poor starting in cold weather, then you have one or more failed glowplugs. Every AA man should know this - AFAIK it's the same on every diesel Mercedes

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk

 

[ANDYSPRINTERSUFFOLK]

Pre+glow+ Light On Flat Battery Shortly Afterwards

Yes as the man says it was down to

Glowplug control unit/relay

One thing I have noticed is that the vehicle no longer has the (Pulsating Noise) "du-dum-du-dum" coming from under dashboard, in the area of the steering wheel when ingition was on stage 2 without vehicle being started red lights on etc (I leave it like this for a couple of mins only a few times a night so lights still bright in dark locations) perhaps the noise was a warning & if it reappears I will take van back to be checked rather than burn a relay out etc.

Invoice shows £70 Preglow Unit Diagnosis / Record

£28 Preglow Timer Relay Replacement of Unit

£52.65 Cost of part

Total cost £177.01

Anyone know of a breakdown organisation/club that likes sprinters 4.2m (load length) & total length of nearly 7 metres, for relay/recovery to dealer etc?

 

[Bill312D]

mine is covered by AA, if thats any help.

 

[Hairyloon]

I'm having a similar problem; when you switch on, no glow plug light.
The light comes on when the engine starts, then goes out after a short time.
It was starting OK, but now it is very difficult, but it has just got a lot colder.

It did the same thing before, but I can't remember if & how I fixed it, or if it just went away on its own.
Both times it has coincided with the heater fan not working, but I can't see how there is any connection.

308D Pickup on a G plate.

Any suggestions?

 

[Hairyloon]

Silly me, I assumed the quirky light meant the control circuits were blewy.
Just changed two of the plugs & it's sorted.
Now I just need to sort out the heater fan...

 

[farrout]

i have a 1996 lwb sprinter with intermittent glow plug warning light. the van drives well for long periods and then suddenly dies all warning lights come on ,but no power steering drifting on a roundabout is scary. the previous owner also had this problem and replaced complete turbo and fuel system at high cost to no avail . 2 visits to mb dealers show no fault on diagnostics .could this be connected?

 

[emlclcy]

Hi have similar Pre-Glow woe, August 2003 311 CDI Sprinter Mercedes Benz
Friday morning put some diesel in "Ipswich" , after leaving forecourt noticed that Pre-glow warning light came on & stayed on even with engine running?
Drove 20 miles home even after 3rd restart light came on with seconds of starting & stayed on,
after just 5 hours sitting on drive, van completely dead, no power even for central locking, alarm

Tried jump starting but altho enough power for dash not enough to turn over,

AA came , confirmed battery very low, tried boosting & found 76 amps in with immediate power drain of 40+ amps

no details on their laptop as to why warning light on (even handbook doesn't say why it is on & what to do)

AA disconnected relay under battery, drain now down to approx 14amps, taken into dealer for diagnostics, Any ideas|??

Failure a bit sudden,Any Link to fueling ??

That's what happened to my 316 sprinter, turns out the glow plug relay has a bad batch problem, i don't have the part numbers to hand. Its a little more than a relay as there is a serial link to the ecu so maybe bad software in the relay or something causes this to happen.
I got a second hand relay of mercman, it has the same part code but seems to be fine at the moment