[Vwdiesel] Too cold

[Doyt W. Echelberger]

January and February have been unusually cold for Ohio winter 
weather.....ranging now from 20F to -14F, with wind chills to 40 
BELOW  zeroF.  When the cold began in January, my 89 Jetta na diesel, 
at 100,000 miles, wouldn't start cold at all, anywhere, without being 
warmed up with the freeze-plug block heater.  So, to avoid frying the 
starter with 10-20 second cranks after being in a store for an hour, 
I did an expensive oil change to low viscosity synthetic oil... 
zeroW-40 Mobil 1, rated for gas and diesel.

Changing to low-viscosity oil shortened the cold crank time down to 
two cranking cycles of about 10 seconds each, still not good enough. 
So (acting soley on instinct and without spending an hour finding all 
the tools and doing the prescribed electrical testing) I took the 
leap and changed out all 4 glow plugs for new Bosch, with amazingly 
good results. The old diesel now starts cold without the block 
heater, almost instantly, after the usual glow plug 
pre-heat.....anywhere, anytime.

I examined the old glow plugs. The best one was severely pitted at 
the tip, and the worst one was covered with thick black soot and 
probably didn't heat at all. The other two were more pitted, 
blackened, and soot covered. These were the original glow plugs that 
came with the new car delivered in 1989.

The heater works and clears the windshield and side windows, the 
General AltiMax Arctic ice tires give traction around the city, the 
back window electric defroster works, and I am happy to be driving a 
simple old non-computerized naturally-aspirated diesel that is 
(hopefully) good for another 1 or 2 hundred thousand miles.

I appreciate the many recent list stories about the TDI's, and will 
be cautious about acquiring one that has to operate reliably without 
being garaged, in these extreme Ohio winters. And I'll extend that 
caution to the hybrids coming on the market. All kinds of 
conventional hybrid electric batteries show sharp and dramatic 
voltage drops in the range of -20 to -30 Centigrade.....approaching 
the extremely low temps that are occurring in northern Ohio this 
winter. (Minus 20 C = minus 4 F  and minus 30 C = minus 22 F.)  If my 
cars lived in garages, low temps would be far less important.

Look at the battery behavior temperature charts yourself at this 
link, and tell e what you think.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.electrochemsci.org%2Fpapers%2Fvol6%2F6040860.pdf&ei=7vv3UpKIC6OCyAGhwIGgDQ&usg=AFQjCNHGEZt1-YL2Y12dbFO3oHzRv5dnAg

Doyt