I have recently bought a 55 Ford Focus 1.8 TDCI. The car seems to run fine, my only issue is that when you turn the key before starting, and the electrics come on, all the main dash lights go out except for the glow plug and engine management indicators which stay on for about 15 seconds before going off.

In fact some of the electrics (such as electric windows, radio) don't work until they go off.

I have a mate who has a diesel Mondeo and his indicators go off in a couple of seconds.

I've been told mine shouldn't stay on for that long, especially if the weather is hot and the glow plugs should be pretty warm already.

Has anyone else had this issue or know why this is happening?

The glowplug light on my 2006 1.6TDCi turns off almost instantly on ignition. You have to be looking at the light when you turn it on, if not you'll miss seeing it.

What mileage are you on? Have your glowplugs ever been changed.

I'm not sure on what the life expectancy or service interval of glowplugs are.

Perhaps someone else can shed more light on expected life and costs etc.....

I'm on 51,000 and I doubt the glowplugs have ever been changed. It seems that the lights should definitely go out within a couple of seconds at most, so I wonder what is causing my problem? Would old or faulty glowplugs cause this?

Quite possibly.

It may be worth doing the Dashboard Secret trick (the sticky on this section) to see if there are any DTC codes.

Also, try plugging in an OBDII reader to see if that returns any error codes.

Yeh I've already done a self-diagnostics check (neat trick!), no DTC codes.