How to stop windscreen wash fluid freezing?

[Glade]

I had to dig 5l of asda screen wash out of the snow in the garden and it was fine. At 50% and -7 it freezes up though.

[slipstream 1985]

i recon none of the cheap ones have ssen as cold a winter and are being shamed by this cold spell.

[Shaw Tarse]

I've got Tesco's screenwash in my car, undilluted, seems fine so far.

[jeff m]

I hope not too many people from cold countries are reading this thread.
Although it does sound as though you are being sold some cr@p.
Big black plastic (trash bag opened up) over the windsceen that also covers the washer jets.
No scraping of screen, no frozen jets.

Each end of it trapped by the front doors, wipers left "up" to prevent wind blowing it away.

[squareflops]

Halfords pink stuff freezes if it sees snow on the tv in my experience.

I've heard a bottle of Brut from Tesco (other global monopolies are available) in with the screen wash works, not sure what smells better though..

[eldar]

jeff m said:

I hope not too many people from cold countries are reading this thread.
Although it does sound as though you are being sold some cr@p.
Big black plastic (trash bag opened up) over the windsceen that also covers the washer jets.
No scraping of screen, no frozen jets.

Each end of it trapped by the front doors, wipers left "up" to prevent wind blowing it away.

Thats fine, but after 20 miles at -10 and the screen is coated with a layer of baked on salt and ground up sand, you need some way of clearing the screen. Either magic non-freeze and heated nozzles or a stop every few miles for a squirt with the inside-the-car reserve...

Or piss on the screen...

[andy-xr]

eldar said:

jeff m said:

I hope not too many people from cold countries are reading this thread.
Although it does sound as though you are being sold some cr@p.
Big black plastic (trash bag opened up) over the windsceen that also covers the washer jets.
No scraping of screen, no frozen jets.

Each end of it trapped by the front doors, wipers left "up" to prevent wind blowing it away.

Thats fine, but after 20 miles at -10 and the screen is coated with a layer of baked on salt and ground up sand, you need some way of clearing the screen. Either magic non-freeze and heated nozzles or a stop every few miles for a squirt with the inside-the-car reserve...

Or piss on the screen...

Same problem, I took to tailgating lorries scrounging falling snow the other night. It's the washer bottle contents that have frozen on mine, it's full of concentrate not readymixed

[eldar]

andy-xr said:

eldar said:

jeff m said:

I hope not too many people from cold countries are reading this thread.
Although it does sound as though you are being sold some cr@p.
Big black plastic (trash bag opened up) over the windsceen that also covers the washer jets.
No scraping of screen, no frozen jets.

Each end of it trapped by the front doors, wipers left "up" to prevent wind blowing it away.

Thats fine, but after 20 miles at -10 and the screen is coated with a layer of baked on salt and ground up sand, you need some way of clearing the screen. Either magic non-freeze and heated nozzles or a stop every few miles for a squirt with the inside-the-car reserve...

Or piss on the screen...

Same problem, I took to tailgating lorries scrounging falling snow the other night. It's the washer bottle contents that have frozen on mine, it's full of concentrate not readymixed

Same here. Mrs Eldar helpfully topped up the washer bottle with water and a squirt of Fairy liquid. Been solid for the best part of 3 weeks. Had to resort to the old fasioned way

[Super Slo Mo]

I got a 5 litre bottle of concentrated fluid from GSF for under a fiver a couple of weeks ago. It's been fine partially diluted even when I've seen -12 Celcius on the dash display.

I suspect the stuff being sold in Tesco/Homebase/et al is fairly diluted, even if they're calling it concentrate, hence why it's freezing.

[MJK 24]

If you're looking for some quality screenwash at reasonable prices, go to your local Volkswagen TPS.

I've just bought eight, five litre cans (40 litres in total) of concentrate for £21. Works down to -20 according to the label and we've not seen it freeze yet.

[smiles22]

Have regularly been minus 17 (night) and minus 10 (day) at our house in Northern Ireland and we have had a nightmare with frozen everything. Have found that Audi/vw/skoda dealer screenwash is rated to minus 70 and is £2.40 a litre. Even diluted has still worked fine.

[R60EST]

blue anti freeze in mine about 25% , doesn't freeze but smears a little

[Eggman]

If you're having problems with the nozzles freezing up rather than the stuff in the bottle, buy a couple of metres of tubing and extend the windscreen washer pipe so that it wraps round and round your radiator top hose after leaving the pump. This works a treat.

[pacman1]

^ Now that Sir, is genius.

[blugnu]

I bought the stuff from B&Q that said 'for extreme weather, use neat.'

The stuff that wouldn't fit in the washer bottle (why aren't they all 5 litre capacity?) I left in the bottle in the footwell.

It froze solid.

I had some stuff from JTF Wholesale in the other car (neat) and that seems fine although the nozzles freeze - apparently the alcohol evaporates at the nozzle so it freezes at a higher temperature. The neat stuff from Tesco seems ok too, but it hasn't been *really* cold here since I filled up with that.

[tricky1962]

I seem to remember from an old formulary I looked at that screenwash is basically alcohol, detergent and something to make it smell nice, plus water. The more water present, the closer the freezing point would come to 0°C

Googling suggests that methanol freezes at -98°C, ethanol at -118°C and isopropanol -90°C.

So I suggest adding any alcohol of these types (not ethylene glycol etc which is/was in brake fluid) to your reservoir and over time this should melt the frozen screenwash.

Methylated spirits is probably the easiest version to find.

Two points though:

1. This won't melt the frozen liquid in your pipes and nozzles - diffusion rates mean that winter will be over before the alcohol works its way through to the nozzles. You would have to melt the tubes with a hair drier so you can flush them through with the high concentration screenwash

2. I have found adding high concentrations of alcohol ie. very little water makes the screenwash smear so win some lose some

3. Don't bother with cheap vodka - nice idea, but too much water there already

Best of luck

[bigdods]

Forget the halfords and tesco stuff, its not as concentrated as it used to be. I went to my local motor factors and bought 2 x 5L jugs of unbranded 'Arctic' screenwash. Ran it at 75% strength in -11 and no problem.

Was previously running 50/50 of halfords finest which froze solid.

[Tunku]

Glade said:

I had to dig 5l of asda screen wash out of the snow in the garden and it was fine. At 50% and -7 it freezes up though.

I'm using Asda screenwash neat, still freezes on the washer tips at below -5c., but does free up after a few blips on the washer switch on my V70.

[peeves]

I am using mixed Autoglym stuff, never froze on me yet (-18c)

[T84]

My 11 year old Focus has heated jets, I thought they'd be on most cars now...