8

We are driving in a winter storm and our old wiper fluid is frozen. We picked up some de-icer fluid from a gas station but it has not yet unfrozen the fluid.

Any suggestions for an on the road fix?

The engine doesn't seem to be heating up the frozen fluid and the windshield wipers keep smearing anything on the windshield.

Improve this question
11
  • That's a tough one. You'd need to heat up the reservoir somehow and get the old fluid out, then put non-freezing type in. Not good at all. I wish I had a real answer for you here.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 0:10
  • 4
    Pack a bunch of the hand warmer packs around it?
    – Fred Wilson
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 0:20
  • 1
    Do you have any tools? If you had a good amount of room left in the windshield wiper reservoir you could pour coolant into it to unfreeze the concoction and then pull the tube off the bottom of the reservoir once it's melted to drain it. Flush with bottled water. Put the hose back on. Fill with nonfreezing wiper fluid.....just a thought
    – DucatiKiller
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 0:23
  • 1
    Will update if the posted solution works!
    – anon01
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 6:17
  • 1
    @DucatiKiller Ok McGiver <sic> lol let's see what happens. $1 says it's works :-)
    – Ppoggio
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 6:42

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
6

Here's a parts explosion

enter image description here

The hose #9 you could drain through.

I like the coolant idea.

pour coolant in the reservoir, it might take a bit but it will turn the slush into liquid. There a glycerin in it and it's alcohol based so it's miscible with any alcohol in your wiper fluid. Nothing bad will happen.

Others chime in if this is ridiculous to you for some reason

Once its liquid, pull the hose #9 off the off the bottom of the tank and drain it. I can't tell from here but if the little pump is there you would need to operate it from the cabin to get the tank empty.

Once empty rinse it out good with bottle water.

reattach hose and then fill it up with non-freezing washer fluid from the convenience store.

Hope this helps!

Improve this answer
0

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .