windscreen washing liquid gets frozen, what to do?

goldspanners

there isnt much you can do about a frozen reservoir, mine has been frozen for about 3 weeks now, i drive at the moment over 140 miles a day and it still doesn't thaw out. i have been using a water bottle from inside the van leaning out and spraying when possible.

Inactive

Buy some screenwash from Lidl for £3.99 for 5 litres, it is OK down to -60, I have used it for the last few years, my washers work fine, even first thing in the morning from cold.

Brilliant stuff.

hewhoisnotintheknow

goldspanners wrote: »

there isnt much you can do about a frozen reservoir, mine has been frozen for about 3 weeks now, i drive at the moment over 140 miles a day and it still doesn't thaw out. i have been using a water bottle from inside the van leaning out and spraying when possible.

shove a hose in there and leave it running or hair dryer it, or take the bottle out and bring it indoors

angeltreats

My vodka in the reservoir trick definitely seems to have worked. I dug the car out from under several inches of snow yesterday and it had been about -8ºC the night before, and the washers weren't frozen.

Lidl are having their screenwash back in next week so I'll pick some up and try it out to see if it's better than the stuff from Halfords.

catflea

eslick wrote: »

if you have a costco near you they have 5 ltr of holts screenwash concentrated goes down to -36 for 3.99 + vat its excellent

Thats a bargain!

I managed to use up my whole screenwash resevoir since Thursday :eek:

Stupid me thought it would last a bit longer so didn't check it this morning - ended up driving for about 10 miles with a very smeary screen till I found somewhere safe to stop and refil (luckily I always carry extra water and screenwash concentrate in the car!)

DaveMacD

I've been on the same reservoir of fluid since about 3 weeks ago..... because , even with a fair amount of screenwash added, it's still been frozen solid every night. Along with the diesel...:eek:

goldspanners

hewhoisnotintheknow wrote: »

shove a hose in there and leave it running or hair dryer it, or take the bottle out and bring it indoors

if i could be bothered i would take it out but its a bit of a pain, i think its behind the front bumper, the hair dryer would take ages to thaw it out just for it to freeze up again, and the hose idea is good in theory but the hose at work has been left out in the freezing condition aswell so its frozen too.

i think when the weather gets better im going to wire up one of those 12v heating element you can get for making a very slow cup of tea and submerge it in the reservoir and attatch a few heating resistors to the hose lines and nozzles in preperation for next year.

ttoli

Smiiithy wrote: »

Do you have much need to de-ice in Northern Cyprus???

Only when I go ski-ing in the Trodos mountains