I have a 2006 F350SD 6.0 that was purchased used earlier this year. It currently has 83K on the odometer. Everything has been fine until the weather turned cold. Now it is a bear to start. It cranks and fires, but runs rougher than a corn cob for the first couple minutes and seems to put out quite a bit of white smoke. If you try to drive away, it jerks and hesitates and has no power at all. The smoke clears in about a minute and it develops full power after about two minutes. After that time, everything is fine. Throughout the course of that day, it will restart in an instant with no hesitation. But by the next morning, the process repeats. I have noticed that the glow plug indicator light on the dash only stays on for 10-15 seconds. I AM NOT using a block heater for overnight storage which is outside. I am also not getting any check engine lights indicating a thrown error code.

I had a Chevy 6.5 Turbo before this that had 400K on it and would start easily and drive away in 20-30 seconds so this is quite different. The glow plug indicator on it would stay on for up to a minute in really cold weather.

So my questions are:

1. How long should the glow plug light on the dash stay on in this vehicle (from
other people's experience)?
2. Do you guys think this might be a bad glow plug controller that is not properly
heating the glow plugs?
3. If so, is it easily replaced by a fairly competent owner?
4. Is there any programming required that an owner couldn't do himself?
5. Is the initial smoking and lack of power normal under cold weather conditions
(about 30 deg F).

Would appreciate any help from somebody with experience with this. Thanks.