Starting from cold/white steam

Afternoon everyone. Looking for some knowledge regarding a failure to start. Suspect glow plugs/relay

08 2.2 diesel Freelander 2 HSE

Historically takes its time to fire in cold weather but always does fire (get HDC fault error message) which dissappears and I understand this is a issue with battery.

Driven yesterday in extremely wet conditions on motorway plus driven through relatively deep flood water. After parking and left 3 hours it was driven to the shops without issue

This morning (-1) wouldn't start from cold. Had battery power and turned over but Wouldn't fire. (White steam coming from exhaust close to firing)

Breakdown recovery fired it with a battery pack and big cloud of white steam that quickly dispersed to nothing. Ran a diagnostic and came up glow plug relay but no further information.

Ran it for an hour on a good motorway blast. And starts fine after been switched off.

Concerned about starting it from cold tomorrow. Plus the white steam and diagnostic of glow plug relay.Any valuable knowledge would be appreciated.

Cheers

Did the breakdown tech check to see if the air filter is wet?

Unfortunately the air intake lends itself well to drawing in water, especially of deep standing water is driven through at speed.

It also needs a better battery, and it's sensible to fit the additional engine earth cable.

Cheers for the reply. He went to check just that then said there was no point as I had subsequently driven it after it had been standing several hours. But actually it makes sense because where else can that steam come from

Many people advise an extra -ve battery cable to the engine.
I put one on last week and it transformed its cold starting and no HTC fault.
I made a cable up. 25mm sq and 1m long so that it looped neatly round the battery and fuse box and onto a spare m10 hole on top of the gear box. 6mm to 10mm eyelets.

It might be worth changing the oil as well if there is a chance water could have got into it.

Nice one thanks for the tip.