I read a book a few years ago written by an old Alaskan trucker. He wrote about several times he had to do exactly that to get his truck running.

My 300D is an original Houston car, and has no block heater. It's never failed to start due to cold weather. However, my 240D (original Iowa rustbucket) had one, and it made a big difference with the loop style glowplugs it had. The instant heat was also very nice. I work nights, so most of my early AM cold starts are at work where there's no place to plug in, so I probably won't be doing a block heater any time soon.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 401,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 26,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.
99 Mazda Miata 183,xxx miles.