[Vwdiesel] Burned out glow plugs

[Hayden Chasteen]

Have a puzzler for the collective wisdom of the group.  Over the last 
several weeks, we have had a few mornings when the temps were in the 
low 60's a couple in the 50's.  My son has been driving my turbocaddy 
every day to work and informs me that he is having trouble getting the 
car started on those cool mornings.  After checking all of the easy 
things (good battery, good starter, power to glow plugs etc) I tested 
the glow plug bar with the ohm meter and got.......NOTHING!  Yes that 
is right, nothing no resistance at all!  Puzzled now, I pulled the 
first glow plug and found a small piece missing from the plug.  Not at 
the end, like I am used to seeing when you have a leaky injector, but 
about 1/8-1/4" back from the tip.  Checked it with the battery charger 
and sure enough, no glow.  Now I decided I must bite the bullet and 
pull all of the plugs, a hard chore made harder by the "spaceship" on 
the turbo pump.  Anyway, all plugs out, all plugs dead!  One other 
plug, had a small piece missing also but the other two looked OK 
visually but all tested no glow with the battery tester.  Luckily I had 
some used plugs from the Ecodiesel engine that I bought so I just 
swapped those in and vrooom, car starts right up.  When my son got here 
last night, we hooked a volt meter to the glow plug bar and timed the 
glow plug relay - 7-9 seconds with power to the glow plugs, then relay 
clicks and no power to plugs.  So here is my problem, the plugs were 
new when I put the engine together so they have ONLY 10000 miles on 
them.  What gives?  I didn't check to see if power came back to the 
plugs after start up, but I can't imagine the relay closing again after 
the key is in the run position.  Any input would be appreciated.  I am 
down to only 3 fast plugs in my possession so I can't replace them all 
again without an outlay of money and I would rather not do that.  BTW 
they were Bosch glow plugs, I don't buy anything else.  hayden

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