1.8 TDCI poor cold start and relay in footwell ticking

[Heaveho]

Ok, this is my relatively low mileage ( 49k ), 10 year old Connect 110 Limited that has been my work van for the last 4 years or so. I had the cold start problem a couple of years ago, at that time quickly resolved when I found the metal post that connects the live feed from the ignition to the glow plug link wires snapped off. That seems fine this time around, and there's nothing obviously apparent this time, other the possibility that all of the glow plugs have had it. Letting them go through their cycle a couple of times doesn't seem to help.

Almost certainly unrelated is the clicking of a relay every 10 seconds or so in the passenger footwell area, although I won't discount the idea that the two things may be linked. It was doing this during a 340 mile trip last week, and didn't seem to affect anything. It got from Newcastle to Southampton in less than 5 hours on three quarters of a tank, which is about normal as far as fuel is concerned.

I like this van, but it's been the most troublesome of the three I've had, nothing major so far, but constant niggles since the summer. Anyone any experience with these?

[finlo]

It only takes one duff glowplug to give you starting grief when temp drops to near zero.

[Heaveho]

finlo said:

It only takes one duff glowplug to give you starting grief when temp drops to near zero.

Thanks for that, never had a problem like this before and assumed all of them would have to be either not working or getting a poor feed. I think the supply is ok.

[Heaveho]

Thought I'd update this. All four glow plugs were knackered ( at 49k miles! ). The ticking relay turned out to be for the rear wipers, which are disconnected at the connection in the doors to prevent the sign writing getting damaged. However, this genius had accidentally knocked the switch to the intermittent position, and not realised! Hence the clicking.........cheap fix though.