My father in law owns a 84 Peugeot diesel powered Ford station wagon (Ford Granada, euro only) beautiful car, built to last, feels a bit like a tank, the guy loves the thing, and I now he is pained when on cold mornings I start my 91 300D in front of him, the engine fires instantly and purrs at a rock steady 600rpms, his car starts but he needs to keep the foot on the gas pedal 'til the engine is warm enough to maintain idle. My question is what is the equivalent of a choke on a diesel, and can this part break leading to the above mentioned symptoms?

Some diesels have a throttle control to speed the engine RPM's when warming up...I doubt if this one has one. All diesels need new/clean fuel and air filters and dirty ones will hurt performance and starting. Injectors should be checked also. If it has glow plugs they should be checked along with the circuit that operates them. May be as simple as adjusting the throttle idle speed...may not be set at specs.

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1983 300SD 343K everyday car
1983 300SD 285K from junk yard-tooks parts from deer car- runs great. Brothers car.
1984 300SD parts car-Hit deer
1979 300D 175K non-turbo "Doctor"
1979 300d parts car

Has the valve clearances on the Peugeot enging been checked? If it does not have hydraulic valve lifters, the valves will need periodic adjustments just like the older MB engines.

It could also be that the engine needs an overhaul or new or rebuilt injectors.

There is no such thing as a choke on a diesel. The idea of a choke is to create a richer mixture and promote vaporization of the gasoline by increasing the vacuum in the air intake system. Neither is applicable to a Diesel engine.

P E H

We had three Peugeot Diesels (504, 504 wagon and 505 turbo) when I was growing up in Buffalo, N.Y. so I have some experience with getting those running in pretty cold weather. All three of them were slow to get running smoothly in really cold weather. I can't remember them ever failing to start but it took some feathering of the accelerator and sometimes a few tries to get them to begin to smooth out. The 505 was not too bad but both the 504s were pretty cold blooded and needed to be driven a little to really run right in cold weather. By all means check all the items suggested above but don't be surprised if the Peugeot engine never gets as smooth as your Benz. You may have also noticed that the Pug is noiser too, even when warm. The Benz is just a better design I guess.

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LRG
1987 300D Turbo 175K
2006 Toyota Prius, efficent but no soul
1985 300 TDT(130K miles of trouble free motoring)now sold

i second lrg's comment - my peug did not have any 'idle control'
device for warmup. it did take a while to smooth out the idle but was ok once warmed up.

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1984 300D Turbo - 231k....totalled 11/30/07 RIP

thanks for the replies, I will forward the suggestions to him
No the valves have never been adjusted in 100 miles, air and fuel filter is clean and I think the glow plugs are ok since the car starts right away. Idle is too slow when cold but if I raise it, at operating temperature it is too high.
It just would stall if the foot is taken off the gas (diesel) pedal in the first 2 minutes or so. No one though that it was a problem 'til I started my Benz in front of them, even my mother has a 4 years old ford Mondeo with a high tech turbo diesel in it and needs to be cranked quite a bit before it manage to unceremoniously cough to life.