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headlight washers not working

M

muggins1

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Location
Hampshire
Car
Accord tourer 04 2.0
We had that very cold spell a few weeks ago and I had to drive, and found that my whole washer system had frozen. I tried it several times, expecting it to thaw after a short while, but it took more than an hour before it started working. Now that things are back to normal, the windscreen washers are working normally but the headlight washers are not working at all. I think there is only one pump so that must be OK.

Does anyone have any ideas what I might need to do to fix it?

[ 2004 Tourer EX 2.0 petrol automatic ]
 
If you have headlight washers, then there is different and 10x more powerful pump for it because the pump needs to push nozzles up with the fluid pressure only (no motors for that). So usually what happens with the frozen pumps is a already bad connector plug cables which most likely were corroded. So if you had washer system frozen and tried to use washers it most likely burnt the connection inside the plate or the cable itself. So you need to lift the front side up where the pump is (not sure if the pump/reservoir is at the same side with RHD cars), lets say you have LHD car, you need to raise the front right side up, remove the fender liner (not totally, just the front side part to get access to pump). You should now see the white reservoir with a small plastic pump on the side for windscreen washers and in front side of the reservoir there should be a bigger pump. Now unplug the electrical plug from the bigger pump and check the voltage readings from it while someone activates the washer system in the cabin :) IF you get lower readings than 10V (but i would recommend even if the voltage is lower than 11V) then start look at the cables witch go to the connector plug you just measured...9/10 your problem is there!


TIP: while you are there...it is good idea to check the other plug voltage as well (the windscreen washer pump plug).
 
I have found most systems on cars fail when the fluids have been sitting in the reservior for more than a few months and with little protection. The Tourer reservoir here serves both front and back wipers and I've never actually run out though it doesn't have headlight ones.

Apart from stripping down the pipes everywhere you could try spraying the nozzles with vinegar and leaving it overnight before poking in there with a very small needle to clear what is left.

In the meantime drain the reservior completely and refill with a decent acidic mix of kitchen vinegar and clean water, leave overnight and use to flush the whole system through until empty.

Last tip - if you cannot afford quality screenwash, use the condensate runoff from one of those new fangled combi boilers and touch of the cheapest washing up liquid you can get. The acidic water kills the germs and stops further build up of whatever is in there.
 
Thanks for that Channel Hopper. The headlight washers have worked a couple of times over the last few months, but usually they don't - but it got through its MOT recently :) I'll spend a few hours working on it sometime soon.
 
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