2009 CashCow - Glowplug code gone!

[Notyou]

We finally found the mystery oil leak on my k9k powered cumquat….

that is the rear corner of the cylinder head where it has managed to blow oil to atmosphere (not come across that failure before).

This failure manifested as sudden massive oil loss, only while driving, never while idling and apparently this can be a thing with the K9k engines and I can confirm that oil loss is generally sudden, fairly extreme and likes to leak out from the lower corner of the timing cover.
When it starts to leak it is the automotive replica of a hippopotamus taking a dump 😆

Now shopping for a replacement engine as it’s cheaper than dealing with omghgf. Surprisingly very snug in the engine bay and awkward to do major jobs in situ. 

Annoyingly it fires straight up without issue after sitting for 6 weeks and the battery being relatively flat. 
it is a little damp inside after the long period sitting outside in the rain and cold … maybe it’s a case of TADTS? 

[Notyou]

Replacement engine secured for £300 and also learned these have a dual mass flywheel too. 

[beko1987]

Awesome, that sounds a fairly decent price. Any way to check the new engine before shoving it in? 

The dmf took ages to get used to, even now I notice it! My bite point is quite low but everything else is fine so I'm just hoping it carries on really 😂

I did manage to smear something (probably De icer) all over the inside of my windscreen though trying to De ice it Wednesday to nip out. Need to get some glass cleaner and sort that out as coming home in the dark it was awful with every oncoming beam (it wasn't as bad in daylight going to work)

[wuvvum]

2 hours ago, Notyou said:

Replacement engine secured for £300 and also learned these have a dual mass flywheel too. 

I think the only modern* diesel I've come across that didn't have a DMF was the Getz.

[beko1987]

I took it as an inevitability when looking for something modern. Managed to swerve a DPF which I'm happy enough with.

The parts don't seem awful for the clutch from what I've briefly seen, I'd almost think of tackling it myself tbh but knowing my luck it'll go on the 5th of Feb when it's snowing...

[Notyou]

3 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Awesome, that sounds a fairly decent price. Any way to check the new engine before shoving it in? 

The dmf took ages to get used to, even now I notice it! My bite point is quite low but everything else is fine so I'm just hoping it carries on really 😂

Well we are just hoping it’s good owing to the fact that the block hasn’t been ejecting oil in that location. Have also seen the proof of it running so fingers crossed. 
 

the clutch in mine is a mega low bite point and we know it’s been replaced recently as some tool wrongly routed the clutch pipe and left it up against the earth point. It’s started to rub through the clutch pipe and all the bolts have obvious signs of being removed. 
 

the clutch I find very disconnected and very suddenly on or off…. I always stall the 107 when I have been in the Nissan for a while 😆

we are taking the ‘belt and braces’ approach… new drive belts, water pump and clutch if it needs it or not. I will be left with a known good dmf and a known good set of injectors and high pressure pump. These are likely to end up in the shed to be forgotten about.

I am told that with a dmf that heat is the main thing that kills them. 
on that basis we shouldn’t be doing clutch dump burnouts or being too lazy to use the handbrake on hills with these items. 
on that musing, does a cumquat even have the power to do a wheel spin intentionally? 

[wuvvum]

12 minutes ago, Notyou said:

on that musing, does a cumquat even have the power to do a wheel spin intentionally? 

If we get snow this winter it might do.

[beko1987]

7 hours ago, Notyou said:

Well we are just hoping it’s good owing to the fact that the block hasn’t been ejecting oil in that location. Have also seen the proof of it running so fingers crossed. 
 

the clutch in mine is a mega low bite point and we know it’s been replaced recently as some tool wrongly routed the clutch pipe and left it up against the earth point. It’s started to rub through the clutch pipe and all the bolts have obvious signs of being removed. 
 

the clutch I find very disconnected and very suddenly on or off…. I always stall the 107 when I have been in the Nissan for a while 😆

we are taking the ‘belt and braces’ approach… new drive belts, water pump and clutch if it needs it or not. I will be left with a known good dmf and a known good set of injectors and high pressure pump. These are likely to end up in the shed to be forgotten about.

I am told that with a dmf that heat is the main thing that kills them. 
on that basis we shouldn’t be doing clutch dump burnouts or being too lazy to use the handbrake on hills with these items. 
on that musing, does a cumquat even have the power to do a wheel spin intentionally? 

I've had mine pull wheelspins, but usually on busy junctions that have been worn glass smooth over time! 98% of the time I try and not sit on the clutch, do big burnouts and pop it in neutral in traffic. I imagine the horse has bolted at 154k now (although I do keep meaning to look for any evidence it might have been apart, you say it's fairly easy to see?) 

The handbrake is solid at click 3 now so I use that a ton! Need to sort a friend's touran handbrake out next week as it's as bad as mine was, handle pointing at the roof and a shit handbrake

I've found the car doesn't like to be hustled along. I find it makes faster progress just going up through each gear in turn sensibly, riding the turbo in 3rd upwards. I tried ragging the fuck out of it before and it's just noise really 😂 Certainly a car to just wind up to speed then it stays there very happily!

I join the m40 going to work heading up a massive hill, that's usually where I'll run it hard through 4th 5th and into 6 at cough70cough, going up to the tiny redline and give it all a good clear out and some decent boost up it. Especially if I've just been pottering around, it is a nice car to just plod along with the traffic in as high of  gear as it can be in and I end up doing a fair bit of that if I don't go into the office for a while.

 

[sierraman]

20 hours ago, Notyou said:

Replacement engine secured for £300 and also learned these have a dual mass flywheel too. 

Have you heard the replacement engine running? 

[sierraman]

17 hours ago, wuvvum said:

I think the only modern* diesel I've come across that didn't have a DMF was the Getz.

Some Fiesta 1.4 TDCIs don’t have them.

[Dan302]

24 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Some Fiesta 1.4 TDCIs don’t have them.

My 207 with the 1.6 hdi doesn't as it's the 92bhp one. The 110bhp does though, to cope with the extra raw power!

[Notyou]

On 28/11/2025 at 14:04, sierraman said:

Have you heard the replacement engine running? 

I have and it sounded to run alright. 

[artdjones]

On 27/11/2025 at 20:07, wuvvum said:

I think the only modern* diesel I've come across that didn't have a DMF was the Getz.

Anything up to 100hp doesn't tend to have a dmf. Up to around 10 years ago, anyway.

[beko1987]

I had my friend come over this morning and work from mine (I'm on annual leave) and I did some jobs on his VW Touran I enabled him into buying.

First job was a dogshit handbrake.I ripped some interior apart (rear vents were pre broken when bought)

I was/am alarmed by the angle the bracket was sat at initially

But I then had both rear wheels off (the bolts having never had a drop of coppaslip in 158k) and neither cable  is snapped or broken, both rear calipers look fine

I read up that the piston needs to come out of the caliper to get at the handbrake mech so I left it there. Peeled the arch liners back and de-mudded whilst the wheels were off

That done I pulled both cables back to the caliper (by hand,nice and free) then just did the adjuster up by the handbrake mech. It went back to that angle but nice and evenly so I guess it's maybe got 2 different length cables? Or 1 has been replaced and 1 hasn't... Either way the handbrake is now locked on by click 4 and won't go beyond click 6 whereas before it was on click 11 and pointing at the ceiling.

Put everything back, vacuuming the .mountain of food out from under the plastics

 

[beko1987]

It was then time to move to the front. Checked I had a socket for the oil filter housing

Laughed at the number plate 

And promptly found a seized as fuck sump plug. Popped the drivers wheel off for access (bolts were really grindy and screechy there) and found a bald inner edge. Checked the pass side, same story! So my friend ordered 2x tyres and tracking for saturday

And I got the sump plug off with a tiny tweak from the breaker bar. Oil changed, I wiped things over in the engine bay and vacuumed a ton of composting pine needles out of various places

This thing started making hissing noises with the engine on 

Removed the air filter and gave it a good clean by bashing it against the fence and vacuued out the shite in the air box

Did the front arch mud traps

And sent him on his way! It's very clean and tidy underneath all round. Front discs have a small lip to them but the pads are good and it brakes fine so that's being ignored.

Last issue is the rear windows drop slightly... I had a play with a door card off but you can see fuck all. The mech works fine, but the glass seems a bit disconnected from it. We unplugged both rear switches so his kids don't piss about with it, and wedged some card in the runners as a starter fix. Will look at that another day. 

Started off freezing  but warmed up nicely. Now I can't find the fleece I had on so I've either left it in his car, or he'll message me in 5 mins when he gets home going "fuck you left your fleece hanging on the wing mirror". I wonder if it'll make the trip 🤔

[Notyou]

Points of note on the touran.

they have a drain hole under the windscreen each side at the top of the scuttle area that mud up and allow water into the car. 

if it has roof bars, at some point these will leak and turn the floor bins into paddling pools.

abs pumps are a total pita and they tend to do the pressure sensor rendering the system inop …. Vag in their infinite wisdom internalised this sensor so you can’t swap them without a full on strip and rebuild of the pump. (or just tape over the light to fix)
 

other than those points they are relatively good. We had mine running almost 200bhp with its BMN and Spanish waiter gearbox. I only sold it because the turbo dumped all the oil into the intercooler…. Possibly had an episode due to power increase 😆

[beko1987]

2 minutes ago, Notyou said:

Points of note on the touran.

they have a drain hole under the windscreen each side at the top of the scuttle area that mud up and allow water into the car. 

if it has roof bars, at some point these will leak and turn the floor bins into paddling pools.

abs pumps are a total pita and they tend to do the pressure sensor rendering the system inop …. Vag in their infinite wisdom internalised this sensor so you can’t swap them without a full on strip and rebuild of the pump. (or just tape over the light to fix)
 

other than those points they are relatively good. We had mine running almost 200bhp with its BMN and Spanish waiter gearbox. I only sold it because the turbo dumped all the oil into the intercooler…. Possibly had an episode due to power increase 😆

Thanks, will bear it in mind (for him!). I did vacuum out a ton of shite from under the windscreen cowling, one day I'll try and have it and a pressure washer together at the same time.

He's only had it 2 weeks but him and his wife both like it so we'll keep it tidy and nice as best we can. Had had several big bills sub 30k ago (turbo, intercooler, clutch, flywheel, front struts were the exciting things we found in the history so we're hoping it's going to be a nice car.exe for their 3 kids and the dog

[paulplom]

How does it compare overall to your qaskai?

[beko1987]

1 hour ago, paulplom said:

How does it compare overall to your qaskai?

I've not driven it far tbh, but I was looking at these before I got the qq on fb 😂

The biggest difference I think is the touran is a van with a car interior, the qq is a purpose designed thing. Qq feels nicer to be in, has a nicer seating position, the interior "wraps around you" more (I drove the touran 2 miles on the test drive after we swapped seats down the road from the garage 😂

The touran is what I'd go for if I needed an occasional van though. The qq is fairly shite with its seats down. I imagine both have an equal amount of "tadts" issue wise to them, the vag is probably more reliable overall though.

[Noel Tidybeard]

On 21/11/2025 at 07:39, AxWomble said:

Agree with all the above - it’s usually a tired starter that does for a commonrail diesel in cold weather. Our old 2.8 Ducato is still churning happily into life at -2, even though it allegedly doesn’t have any glowplugs - just a ‘flame start’ which I’ve never seen working. 

 

[beko1987]

Ah... Between lunchtime and just now my android headunit broke itself...

Its not physically broken, the lines did change and faded to black with green lines which moved but it's unhappy...

I was out there earlier pissing about installing an app, I'm wondering if I've software bored it... There's no physical reset switch bar a paperclip hole that I think factory nukes it, we turned the car off and locked it up, by Saturday when I drive it next it'll  do a full cold boot and we'll see what it does.

Bluetooth connects to it though so if the software is running fine the screen controller has fucked itself.

Might send the Ali express seller an email 😂

[beko1987]

The kids went home this morning so after putting the house back together went out to the car.

Immediate positive is the headunit came back to life

And works fine! I then got into the 2nd reason I was outside, I got sent a Bluetooth obd scanner to review !

Initial setup went well, I got the footage I need for now 

And it found a code 😂😭

Could possibly be related to the cold start issues it still has? 😂 I cleared the codes and it came straight back.

I fitted a high quality* set of new glow plugs 10 months ago so it cant* be them, do I pop a glow plug relay on? It seems the next culprit from the reading I've done. Or can I test that it's working somehow?

12/10 for my sponsored product so far 😂 Off to mums tomorrow and will play some more. The app it comes with seems quite fluffy with the actual code reading bit being a side option.

Can build cool reports with it though 🤷

[Brigsy]

Typical k9k, Glow plug fault always stored. Itll be plugs or relay, or both. Mine has had the same code stored for last 100k😅

[beko1987]

4 minutes ago, Brigsy said:

Typical k9k, Glow plug fault always stored. Itll be plugs or relay, or both. Mine has had the same code stored for last 100k😅

This has probably had it stored for years!

I've done the glow plugs, am about to see if I can find the correct glow plug relay and will happily throw one of those at it (if their not £hfm)

I'll continue to drive round it until then though, once it's started it's fine 🤷

[RoverFolkUs]

To save stripping it all down you can resistance check the glow plugs from the relay connector. 

Glow plug relay is in front of the battery, unplug the connector and you should see 2 thick wires and 4 skinny ones. Thick are power and earth, skinny ones go to each plug. Carefully probe the connector (use a paperclip on the end of your multimeter probe if needed) and put the other lead on the negative battery terminal.

You're looking for around 1 ohm of resistance at each one. 

Do check the voltages of the new glow plugs you're fitting. Some are 12v, some 7v, some 4.4v. The wrong ones will obviously either not work or get killed within the first couple of heat cycles

[beko1987]

7 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

To save stripping it all down you can resistance check the glow plugs from the relay connector. 

Glow plug relay is in front of the battery, unplug the connector and you should see 2 thick wires and 4 skinny ones. Thick are power and earth, skinny ones go to each plug. Carefully probe the connector (use a paperclip on the end of your multimeter probe if needed) and put the other lead on the negative battery terminal.

You're looking for around 1 ohm of resistance at each one. 

Do check the voltages of the new glow plugs you're fitting. Some are 12v, some 7v, some 4.4v. The wrong ones will obviously either not work or get killed within the first couple of heat cycles

Thanks, will do that! Off to my mums today, my stepdad can help me 👌

I'm 73% sure I got the correct voltage glow plugs to replace them back in March (remember reading and confirming the voltage on old and new anyway) but they did get thrown in with zero diagnosis or code reading...

If the resistance is OK on the glow plugs does that mean load the parts cannon with a new relay?

[RoverFolkUs]

7 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

Thanks, will do that! Off to my mums today, my stepdad can help me 👌

I'm 73% sure I got the correct voltage glow plugs to replace them back in March (remember reading and confirming the voltage on old and new anyway) but they did get thrown in with zero diagnosis or code reading...

If the resistance is OK on the glow plugs does that mean load the parts cannon with a new relay?

Whilst you're in there you might as well check for power and ground at the connector to the relay with your multimeter, if you're feeling particularly adventurous a load test would involve powering a H7 bulb with it to check wiring integrity, using crocodile clips or whatever means you may have available. It's a more reliable test than simply checking for voltage. 

Otherwise a new relay isn't a bad shout but from experience they're often replaced for no reason as people tend to see the glow plug fault code and replace that instead of the plugs because it doesn't report back a fault code for an individual plug. That's just the French way of doing things - they never do pinpoint which plug is faulty when giving a fault code. 

[artdjones]

17 hours ago, Brigsy said:

Typical k9k, Glow plug fault always stored. Itll be plugs or relay, or both. Mine has had the same code stored for last 100k😅

I had a 1.6 Citroen C5 that had the same code for the 5 years I owned it and the 5 years the next owner had it. It always started perfectly, and only a fool would start messing with DV6 glow plugs if they didn't have to. They are longer and thinner than K9K plugs and only have an 8mm hex rather than a 10mm.

I bought the C5 back with 223k on it, and swopped the engine into a Berlingo. I didn't even bother trying to change the plugs then.

[beko1987]

32 minutes ago, artdjones said:

I had a 1.6 Citroen C5 that had the same code for the 5 years I owned it and the 5 years the next owner had it. It always started perfectly, and only a fool would start messing with DV6 glow plugs if they didn't have to. They are longer and thinner than K9K plugs and only have an 8mm hex rather than a 10mm.

I bought the C5 back with 223k on it, and swopped the engine into a Berlingo. I didn't even bother trying to change the plugs then.

The 10mm ones mine has were scary enough to undo whilst listening to the dry thread in the head, sod that on something thinner!

[artdjones]

1 minute ago, beko1987 said:

The 10mm ones mine has were scary enough to undo whilst listening to the dry thread in the head, sod that on something thinner!

I also forgot to mention that the DV6 plugs are down the back of the engine. K9K is easier in every way.