2004 Ford Galaxy Zetec from UK and Ireland - Comments

Excessive smoking from auxiliary diesel pre-heater on cold days.

On the whole a very reliable family car.

Comfortable with plenty of room for seven people, even on long journeys.

Air conditioning in a real boost especially on foreign holiday to France in a heatwave!

Only drawback is excessive smoking from the diesel pre-heater at the rear of the car which sees us disappearing under clouds of smoke on cold mornings until the pre-heater switches off. We also had this problem with our previous Galaxy and Ford never managed to fix it.

Has anyone else experienced this. Any suggestions on how to fix it?

If its smoking like that - then its possible you need a new glow plug, in the aux heater.

It should not smoke like your description lol.

I also have a 2003 Galaxy Ghia 1.9 turbo diesel. Excessive smoke from auxiliary heater after 25K miles. Quoted 500euros for replacement plus labour. Will I have problems if it is just disconnected? Steve at "mageve@eircom.net"

I think you might find this site and the FAQ's useful.

http://www.fordgalaxy.org.uk/ford/index.php?showtopic=7886

And yes you can disable the aux heater by removing the connector from the temperature sensor at the front of the car near the windscreen wipers search site for details of exact location.

Cheers

Richard.

I had the pre heater motor and pump disconnected on my Galaxy because of excessive smoke. So far after 3 weeks appears to be no problems.

I have a 2002 Galaxy Zetec diesel.

I had the smoking problem on cold days, people on the street telling me my car was on fire. Auxilary heater replaced twice under warranty and the last one has packed up as well. The dealer says they are disconnecting them now as they cannot be fixed. They only work when the outside temp is below 10 deg c, so they do not start all summer, and the diesel is not used in the system, hence the smoke in winter. Down side is the car is freezing in winter.

Air con unit also packed up. 2000 euros to replace.

Link bars all replaced twice. 800 euros.

Water from the rear window washer came up in the passenger footwell, broken pipe.

I am now considering a Galaxy Ghia, because I like the car, it is comfortable and can carry loads.

From bill,

I also had this problem of smoke from pre heater, dealer quoted £600 to replace or £150 to replace glow plugs of which there are two, the pre heater is both a VW audi and ford part number, I just removed the damn thing completely and put a steel tube to bridge together the two water coolant pipes and blanked off the diesel pipe. So far no problems and the moneys in my pocket.

From Andy.

I have a TDI galaxy, I have a problem with the heater inside the car. Has any one got any ideas. The dial on the panel does not turn the unit to heat. Is the cable for this just broken in some way, or could it be something worse??.

I have a 2003 Galaxy 1.9 TDI and the aux heater has just packed up for the 3rd time. Seems there is a problem with these aux heaters and they need to be replaced on average every two years. When I had my last one replaced, I had to wait for 6 weeks because they were updating the part due to a problem, it seems to me that they have not rectified that problem. I too was asked to get out of the car by the police because they thought my car was on fire.

I own a 2004 galaxy which I have had for four months and was getting poor fuel consumption and smoke from under car my ford dealer disconnected a wire saying part is around £ 500 pounds they knew the problem over the phone so why don't ford do a mod for this problem? can I do away with the diesel side and connect to the front water supply? and why does it work off of diesel anyway? do petrol galaxy's have a rear heater if so how do they work without diesel any help please chris,