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In recent years, intensive research has been pursued throughout the world in order to find substitutes to crude oil based fuel in compression-ignition engines. Among the different fuels studied, methanol is probably the primary candidate to substitute diesel fuel in the future. The major problems encountered with methanol in diesel engines are its poor cold startability together with unstable combustion levels under low load. Forced ignition techniques such as glow plugs and spark plugs have been used to overcome these problems. The major disadvantages with the use of glow plugs are their high power requirements as well as their limited lifetime. This paper presents the results from recent work done on the feasibility of catalytically igniting methanol with the use of platinum and platinum/rhodium-coated glow plugs.