AEL TDI - three glow plugs, auxiliary heater

hello

Here's a translation of the German text:

"I have a question regarding the three glow plugs in the AEL engine. Volvo issued instructions quite early on to disable one of the three glow plugs. The mechanics followed these instructions diligently – and it has been disabled in all of my vehicles."

Was ist das? Did something like that also happen with Audi or VW?

best regards, uwe

Hello Uwe,
Do you know the reason Volvo gave for this shutdown?
I had to disable the control for the "low heating power" relay (one glow plug) on my 1Z engine due to a persistent malfunction.
Best regards,
Herbert.

hello

Well, that's exactly the question. Unfortunately, I don't have any more detailed information either. As I said, this was done on all three of my engines, so it must have been a rather urgent issue.
I've never ridden a bike with three wheels before.

Hello.

Audi had the AEL (Antriebe Electric Lift) system in the A6, which doesn't use glow plugs but instead has an electric heater directly integrated into the ventilation system.

Hi Christian,
Where is the electric heater located?
I've been wishing I had those a few weeks ago, when temperatures were constantly below freezing, but either they don't exist or they're broken.
I don't recall the ventilation ever being warmer during the warm-up phase in winter (around ~15-20 km).

Best regards from Berlin,
Olli.

Well, warming up the engine in the winter is a real pain – that's true.

Last year, I also had a faulty thermostat, which was quite a problem.

However, even with a functioning cooling system, it takes an incredibly long time before the automatic climate control finally starts working.

I'm seriously considering adding a used auxiliary heater to my car, but I'm running into the same problem: how do I control the climate control system? Let's see.


best regards, uwe

It's located inside the heater housing; I'm not entirely sure about the exact location on the C4 model, but my Audi 100 didn't have it. On the 4B model, it's accessible from the driver's footwell area if you remove the storage compartment.