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Glow Plug

Heats the combustion chamber so a cold compression-ignition engine will fire — below a certain temperature compression alone is not enough. Consumable, and they fail individually and progressively, so the symptom scales: one dead plug gives a slightly rougher cold start, several gives extended cranking and white smoke, all of them gives a no-start in the cold. In mild weather a diesel with dead glow plugs may start almost normally, which is why the fault often goes unnoticed until the first genuinely cold morning. They also tend to seize in the head with age, so removal is frequently harder than diagnosis.

Also known as: glowplug, glow plugs, heater plug, heater plugs, starting aid

Referenced by 152 codes

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Codes involving this component (152)

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Information, not instruction

CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.

Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.

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