How to thaw washer bottle

[LandCruiser]

Step 1: find service tech who put bug wash into your reservoir instead of de-icer in -10 degree weather and punch him in the junk

Step 2: pour warm, NOT BOILING, water into the reservoir tank. Apparently heat from the engine won't thaw it alone when it's 0.

Step 3: drain with a hand pump, or just squirt it out

Step 4: pour de-icer and write "DE-ICER ONLY" on reservoir cap with white Sharpie

 

[NoDak]

that may thaw out the tank but the lines will still be frozen.

in the future, i just fill the tank before i hit the dealer anyway since i mix mine with some rain-x and i dont want them diluting it.

same with the anti-freeze, i use distilled water in my mix since we have such high dissolved mineral content in our water up here which is not good for the cooling system.

you can tell how bad it is by the white calcium deposits after you wash a car by hand if you dont wipe it down.

if you fill them up, they wont add any.

 

[eddiebx]

that may thaw out the tank but the lines will still be frozen.

in the future, i just fill the tank before i hit the dealer anyway since i mix mine with some rain-x and i dont want them diluting it.

same with the anti-freeze, i use distilled water in my mix since we have such high dissolved mineral content in our water up here which is not good for the cooling system.

you can tell how bad it is by the white calcium deposits after you wash a car by hand if you dont wipe it down.

if you fill them up, they wont add any.

I think for our 5th gens we Toyota pre-mix stuff, so don't need to dilute with distilled water.

http://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Genuine-Fluid-00272-SLLC2-Coolant/dp/B04SL8568

 

[NoDak]

thats true for us, but the $10/hr bloke at the dealership is just gonna dump tap water in to bring the level up. not taking that chance

 

[eddiebx]

Oh yeah most definitely, I would never trust them either. Just didn't want to see you end up putting in the wrong stuff while trying to prevent the grease monkeys from doing so

 

[NoDak]

yeah the older gen's you just used prestone + distilled water. these newer ones need that special loving (read $$$) liquid.

 

[Snooperstyle]

Yup, I had that happen last January while coming into Denver during a cold snow storm. It was seriously hindering my vision to not be able to wipe the windshield. All the traffic caused a lot of dirty smeg to get on the windshield. We had to stop four times to manually clean it off. I had to just keep running the washer pump until it went through, at the recommendation of a local mechanic, who says it happens all the time around CO. I was real nervous about running the washer pump this much all at once, but it worked. I then ran it all out of there and put in the hard core super freeze proof stuff and only had a problem after that when it was -14 degrees one night. Dealers don't know where we are going to be taking our rigs, and they should lways use the -25 stuff IMHO, even if the dealer is in the South.

Let this be a warning to those who are planning a trip to a much colder climate.

 

[cbielat]

I have a similar situation. My brother recently moved back from Los Angeles and during our latest cold spell, we had found out that his washer fluid froze. Now we are waiting for it to thaw out but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen any time soon. Seems as though the techs at the dealer out there only put regular water in there because it shouldn't freeze like that.

 

[1engineer]

I buy several gallons of the winter RainX orange fluid in the winter and just run it all year around. Funny putting in -25 degree stuff in July.

 

[Antman]

I was coming home during a snow storm one day and spotted my sister under the hood of her VW Cabriolet. I went over to see what was going on and she said- "Hi! I'm just filling up the washer fluid..."

Well luckily I got home when I did because not only did she have the radiator overflow cap off by mistake, the "washer fluid" she was using was actually a gallon jug of 30% Nitromethane mix for my R/C cars. That would have been nice!

Worst part was that she actually got mad at me for ripping the jug out of her hands as she was just starting the "death pour".

:boom:

 

[Intruder]

I buy several gallons of the winter RainX orange fluid in the winter and just run it all year around. Funny putting in -25 degree stuff in July.

We've got the yellow -40 stuff up here. I use it year round as well because I've never really found the bug remover stuff works any better and our weather changes fast (was +7C yesterday, -14C today).

 

[1engineer]

We've got the yellow -40 stuff up here. I use it year round as well because I've never really found the bug remover stuff works any better and our weather changes fast (was +7C yesterday, -14C today).

-14 C is about 7 F. If it ever gets down to -25 F here we have bigger problems than washer fluid freezing lol. We have to worry then about that glacier moving down the street. Actually the lowest temperature ever recorded here is about -23F in 1895.

 

[NoDak]

ha, here is the temp from last week and its not even the cold months yet (jan/feb for us). this is just a teaser for the real cold stuff to come.

.

 

[syndicate1]

Step 1: find service tech who put bug wash into your reservoir instead of de-icer in -10 degree weather and punch him in the junk

Step 2: pour warm, NOT BOILING, water into the reservoir tank. Apparently heat from the engine won't thaw it alone when it's 0.

Step 3: drain with a hand pump, or just squirt it out

Step 4: pour de-icer and write "DE-ICER ONLY" on reservoir cap with white Sharpie

.99 cent fix- buy a bottle of 90 proof rubbing alcohol and add it to the tank..... won't freeze. I've live in cold mountain towns and this worked great, plus the high concentration on alcohol would clean the window spotless without leaving streaks.

 

[Dilong26]

I live in California and have no idea what you guys are taking about.:shrug:

 

[Snooperstyle]

I was coming home during a snow storm one day and spotted my sister under the hood of her VW Cabriolet. I went over to see what was going on and she said- "Hi! I'm just filling up the washer fluid..."

Well luckily I got home when I did because not only did she have the radiator overflow cap off by mistake, the "washer fluid" she was using was actually a gallon jug of 30% Nitromethane mix for my R/C cars. That would have been nice!

Worst part was that she actually got mad at me for ripping the jug out of her hands as she was just starting the "death pour".

:boom:

That's hilarious! Thanks for the good laugh.

 

[Intruder]

I live in California and have no idea what you guys are taking about.:shrug:

Heh, just remember this thread if you ever take a road trip up north. That actually reminds me of a pretty funny story. One of my exes worked with a guy who had recently moved here from Australia. In the fall he and his girlfriend drove out to Banff for the day and didn't come back until later at night when the temps had dipped below freezing and some sleet was coming down. Well he kept having to pull over to scrape his windshield because every time he sprayed it, it froze up completely. Naturally, being from Australia he had never put anything other than water in his washer bottle. The temp wasn't so low that it froze in the bottle or the lines, but it did freeze up as soon as it hit the windshield.

 

[Ducmonsta]

I was coming home during a snow storm one day and spotted my sister under the hood of her VW Cabriolet. I went over to see what was going on and she said- "Hi! I'm just filling up the washer fluid..."

Well luckily I got home when I did because not only did she have the radiator overflow cap off by mistake, the "washer fluid" she was using was actually a gallon jug of 30% Nitromethane mix for my R/C cars. That would have been nice!

Worst part was that she actually got mad at me for ripping the jug out of her hands as she was just starting the "death pour".

:boom:

It would've been cooler to light the washer spray while she tested it! Run away screaming "NOS!"

Although, that stuff takes for-ev-er to burn off. Pretty cool when it does. It's like napalm.

 

[dekeman]

It would've been cooler to light the washer spray while she tested it! Run away screaming "NOS!" It's like napalm.

Talk about de-icing! Nice blue flame too.

 

[Diver Deuce]

Yeah I forgot to change out the washer fluid to de-icer/-25℉ fluid before going from Arizona to Utah... That was a fun experience hitting the washer only have have ice splatter all over my windscreen at 80mph. The lines are still frozen...