vauxhall corsa glow plugs

The Pukka plugs cost a small fortune (£20 ish each) but I have sourced cheepos from my local motor factors recently (£5 each).

The actual fitting isn't bad, buying a small socket to suit the 4mm (IIRC) nuts that connect the rail to the top of the plug is well worth it, as is a deep socket for the plugs themselves.

When replacing them add a touch of copperslip to the threads (people will soon be along to say its a waste of time but...) and don't over tighten as I had a plug snap off while replacing them. That particular adventure ended up in a cylinder head removal, much head scratching at the local engineers and umming and arrring (swearing) as they tried to get the remainder of the exceedingly hard plug out.

A decent gasket set for that engine costs £80, so you can imagine what the total bill would have been if I'd paid a garage.

Tom Burton

The message from "Tom Burton" contains these words:

My experience of cheepos is that they last a few months, if that. Bosch glowplugs seem to last well, and may well be cheaper than "genuine" Vauxhall ones.

Ahh Indeed, but these cheepo's come with a 1yr Guarantee :-D

Tom

The message from "Tom Burton" contains these words:

I'd still not be tempted. The Bosch plugs I installed in minibuses lasted several years at a time with perhaps a dozen starts a day, often more.

It is not worth the time that the guarantee cannot reimburse you to put in something liable to failure. For instance put the rear glowplugs in a 6 cylinder volvo/vw in less than an hour. If your time is worth little and the glowplugs are easy then fine. For instance my old CF eats cheap glow plugs, but the rear ones are easy to change anyway, I have even changed them in a car park, since it won't go without them. mind you they are all bosch ones now. wellman glow plugs are rubbish.

mrcheerful

, I have even changed them

These are FAI plugs.. Any opinions?

Tom

I can't say, but they certainly sound like a cheapo make, if it was me, then I would check the originals, there is probably only 1 or 2 that don't work, replace those with genuine. As you have already done the deed, don't chuck the old ones till you have checked them, hang on to the good ones for when the new ones start to go.

mrcheerful

Umm Guys

F*ok F*ok F*ok F*ok Guess what ive just been doing...

:-)

buying genuine glow plugs?

mrcheerful

Acutally I haven't I had some spares....

Well, nearly, changing the plugs, it took about 10mins to do all four (once I retrieved my tools from a friends)

So, I think the guy at the motor factors is trying to fob me off with the two year warranty, he says bring them in and he'll test them to see if they have blown due to the car having a faulty timer relay as it is very rare for a plug to just 'fail'.

I mentioned that the last time one failed, it was to a dead short, and he said that would be because the timer had left the plugs in for a long time, but this car(and plugs) have an "afterheat" facility.

From the brief, but cold, assessment I carried out at 7am, they have a sky high resistance.

But I suspect when I go back, he'll just say, its the timer mate... do-one....

What do others think?

It is very easy to check the timer, just connect a bulb up to a glow plug and start as normal while watching the bulb, it should come on with the ignition, remain on when the dash light goes out and keep going for a up to about 20 seconds after it starts, provided it goes out within a minute or so there is nothing wrong with it. Personally I have never seen one that stays on, very occasionally fail completely (I hear)

Best test is to remove them and put a jumper lead on each one, if it glows red within a second or three it is fine. But do not keep hot for more than a few seconds as there is no heat sink (cylinder head) to keep the temperature down when they are out.

mrcheerful

The message from "Tom Burton" contains these words:

I think he's a lying twisting git.