philg

Hi, I've been lurking around here for a while and have found answers to most of my questions simply by searching. I've finally gotten round to introducing myself so I can start seeing pictures. I maintain and have the use of a '99 Galaxy LX TDi 90 bhp. My own car is a nice and simple diesel 106 Anyway, there seems to be a great deal of knowledge and advice here, a credit to all involved.

The job of the glow plugs is to heat inside each cylinder to help ignite the diesel, if the car will fire on the first crank without waiting for the light to go out then I can't see it doing any harm not waiting for it. I never wait for the glow plug light on our Galaxy and it always fires first go. Our diesel 106 though, will not fire unless you wait for the light. When one of the plugs stopped working it would only fire on 3 cylinders for a few minutes until enough heat had conducted through the cylinder walls to the remaining one. What I'm getting at is each car is different. If yours is like our Galaxy I wouldn't bother waiting for the light. The only problem I can see is wearing out the starter if it does need the heat from the plugs but you don't wait for the light, thus having the starter turning for excessive lengths of time.