Dieselsicles

[djstorm]

Anyone else's TDI frozen solid this morning? My car's an ice cube this morning, wouldn't start to save it's life. I'm telling you, the new house is nice and all but I sure miss my heated garage right about now...

[RobG]

Re: Dieselsicles

Did you have it plugged in? I had the heat on in the garage last night, mine started no problem.

[djstorm]

Re: Dieselsicles

Nope, not plugged in. As you may notive from my previous thread I've been trying for weeks now to get advice on where to take it to get the collant heater installed... Crappy tire has been back ordered so I just got the heater two nites ago, still need to stop and grab hoses. Still have no idea where I am going to get this installed, I'm going to see if any of the little shops in Airdrie can help me out here.

[stefan]

Re: Dieselsicles

the management of my building hasn't turned on the outside plugins yet.. so yeah, it was a no-go after work yesterday. No problem this morning after being plugged in though.

**I was thinking i should just make some room for an 1100cca battery for the winter monthes... just in case.

[Smarty39]

Re: Dieselsicles

Still have no idea where I am going to get this installed, I'm going to see if any of the little shops in Airdrie can help me out here.

Go see George at Tunedub, he'd be able to install it for you.

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: Dieselsicles

I have underground parking at home so no worries there, nice and warm, but sitting out all day makes it a little cold, usually fire it up at lunch for a while. My other problem is that my car is so efficient that when it is this cold it is very rare for my water temp to go over 40C so that does not help to keep me warm

[nismodrifter]

Re: Dieselsicles

Never personally ever had a problem with starting either of the TDI's in our household. The black one sees Saskatchewan winters (-40 for weeks straight is common). It's been through 3 Sask winters without every even stuttering before starting. The heat however daaamn...the University was just a 5min driveaway and I used to freeze my buttocks off, thank god for heated seats though haha. We'll see how well it does this winter (my bro has a magic touch for starting diesel cars in cold weather hahaha, no matter how cold it is...if I can't get a car to start...he does).

[forkdork]

Re: Dieselsicles

Did your fuel freeze? or do you just have a weak battery?

-25 ambient really shouldn't be a problem, just cycle the glow plugs 2 or 3 times and crank it (make sure that your heated seats/fan/whatever uses lots of electricity are off when you are cranking).

[djstorm]

Re: Dieselsicles

Fuel froze. It was -31 ambient in Airdrie last night. Not warm! I killed all the electrical to be sure, but it cranks just fine, hell I could get it halfway to work on the starter motor I'm sure. She just won't catch captain! I'm given er all I got! I will call George, not sure when I can make it there to see him, but I'll drop him a line.

[stefan]

Re: Dieselsicles

does anybody know what the largest CCA battery you can fit in a TDI is (without modifying the plastic battery housing)?

[forkdork]

Re: Dieselsicles

CCA is sort of irrelevant for a diesel.

CCA is the amount of charge the battery can pass under cold start conditions for 30 seconds only.
Now under most severe cold starts you are going to be spending over 30 seconds on the glow plugs so when it comes time to crank the starter wont be provided with enough electricity to produce sufficient torque to turn the engine over fast enough to start the car.

What you want is a large Ampere Hour value. The ampere hour value tells how much charge the battery can actually store.

Thats why my moms pathfinder has a little tiny cube shaped pos battery with 1200 CCA (which is great for a gasoline car) but that thing wouldn't be able to start a tdi in the cold.

[stefan]

Re: Dieselsicles

yeah, that makes good sense.

[forkdork]

Re: Dieselsicles

If you do find a huge battery with a large AH for a reasonable price plz pm me because I am also in the market for a new batt.

[djstorm]

Re: Dieselsicles

So aside from doing the heater - it just occurred to me...

What tips\tricks do you have for a newbie when it comes to starting a TDI in this weather? Maybe I'm just doing it wrong...

[stefan]

Re: Dieselsicles

cycle the glow plugs more then once, thats about it. They should stay on significantly longer then they do when its warmer out anyways, but a second cycle helps a lot.

btw... dealer list for battery is 143.75, NAPA is 158.99.