Ever since I got the car, it was never happy on cold starts. Even on "normal" temp starts it was never as smooth as I'd like and the car was waaaaay more thirsty than I'd have liked when cold.
So when the car was in BMW for the cripplingly overpriced parking brake module replacement they spotted a fault code with the glow plug control module and wanted £350 to replace it. Pfft I thought after I'd just given them my left kidney for the parking brake, so I got it sorted myself. Found the part code on RealOEM and ordered a replacement Beru unit from eBay for £80, which arrived promptly.
Then booked the car in with my local independent to have it fitted after the wife insisted I wouldn't have time to do it myself.....
Upon removal of the engine cover and scuttle tray etc they found additional coolant pipes in the way of the control module that they weren't expecting. We're talking narrow ones about 8mm in diameter and they said they'd not seen this on the many 3.0d's they'd handled prior. As such the intake plenum needed to come off too in order to get in, rather than using alien fingers like normal. Anyway, all good after all this was sorted and I went to collect the car.
First thing I noted was the car did a regen. But we're talking a serious regen here - white/ grey haze from the exhaust under acceleration visible in the rear view mirror (which stopped about a mile later and hasn't happened since), and bonkers heat on the tailpipes with the exhaust clanking from the heat when I got home and turned the ignition off. It's never done that before.
Now all cold starts are met with a proper "vrooom" when the engine starts, and instant smooth running, whereas before it would sort of cough into life and feel a bit lumpy, almost misfiring when in minus temps. The engine is also smoother to drive before reaching normal operating temps and I dare say has improved mpg - you can actually see there is less throttle needed to maintain cruising speed on the motorway than before. Hoping this isn't my imagination but I'd say this has taken me from late 20's into early 30's mpg wise. I need to brim it to really do the math.
How much of this improved running is down to active glow plugs at the right times vs a proper regen taking place I'm not sure, but it's made it all much better.
So the question is, clearly the glow plug controller is involved in the regen process and heavily by the looks of this. This clearly wasn't working with a faulty module, so:
1. How long would a faulty glow plug controller need to be in place for it to kill your DPF?
2. If the 2 are so closely linked, then getting these things checked and replaced should be high on many peoples agendas, yes?
Thoughts and comments welcome.
Chris.
Never anthropomorphise computers. They hate that.