Glow plugs

[HarryBobs1]

Intermittently our 2007 d4d 2.2 Corolla Verso 122k is struggling to start. The glow plug light goes out quickly before it engine cranks however the initial few seconds the engine runs is sounds like it's misfiring.

It produces a whitish cloud and then run sweet. Taken the car on long journey no issues, no smoke ever. Was thinking the fueling issue is wrong hence the struggle and white cloudy startup. Do you think I'm on the right track and worth swapping glowplugs? No codes appear on the OBD2 scanner.  Thanks all 

[Gerg]

Has the fuel filter been replaced recently? I think these are best assumed to be guilty until proved innocent.

As it doesn't sound like an urgent problem, I would be inclined to try a fuel injector cleaner first, not least for ease/cheapness.

I don't own your car, so I've no personal experience of this engine, but if you can, it might be worth checking the resistance of the glowplugs before you get them out, obviously a volts/ohm meter is needed for this.  If the resistances are all similar then that is a reasonable sign that they are likely ok.  Last week I was chatting to a techie at NGK head office (different topic to this), he mentioned (in passing) that a lot of glow plugs are replaced when the problem lies elsewhere! 

[HarryBobs1]

Gerg, thanks for the quick reply. I've used redex recently, and routinely do so. Fuel filter was changed 8k ago however wouldn't hurt to replace so thanks for the advice there. You can definitely go hunting for bigger issues sometimes. One bad batch of fuel etc....

I do have a multi meter so will read up on how to test them. Do you have any experience regarding d4d fuel suction control value issues, the symptoms our car has seems to match these also. If I'm honest, I don't know what that component does, but looks like it could be cleaned? Can see my week off work being a busy one! Cheers 

[Gerg]

You are welcome.  Sound like you're already well versed on these things!

No, sadly (thankfully?) I don't have any personal experience of SCV problems, but you've reminded me that I should have mentioned that in my list of suggestions....

As the engine is so popular, I would expect plenty of answers from owners of Avensis, Verso etc. owners shortly.

The glowplugs are easy to measure, but I don't know how accessible they are on the D4D.  After disconnecting the electrical connection, the resistance should be around 1 ohm to ground.  It will be low enough that you might want to factor-in the additional resistance of your meter leads (about 0.4 ohms, usually), but generally one glow plug will stand out from the others' readings if it's defective.

Perhaps worth waiting for someone who owns one and has fixed this fault, they can be specific about location and values on the D4D!