small amount comes out drivers side
nothing passenger wiggled a needle round, normally does the trick. nothing completely clean. 14 plate kia sportage.

have ordered replacement jets as they are only a few quid but they haven’t arrived yet and have a motorway drive.

any hacks that might work? thinking about spraying with wd40…but don’t want to make the small amount that is coming out any worse

yes the washer fluid is topped up, no its not frozen (thought it was, but warmer now)

Have you removed the tube from the jets and checked that fluid is getting to the jets. Good chance that it is still frozen

Just the needle/badge pin suggestion here.

Check that the hose is patent and is connected to the jet. If it got frozen you may have a broken connector or ‘popped’ joint.

Or there may be an entirely coincidental hole in the hose from abrasion or squirrels.

good luck.

Check the hoses as well. Are they connected? Gunked up?

Do you have a compressed air line?
Tubeless tyre inflator?
Pull the hose off and blow. EDIT nearest the nozzles is a good place to start
Hosepipe in the washer bottle and wash the old fluid out because that’s usually the problem. I run water only in summer

Check hoses as others have said, also if jets can be removed (assume so as you’re ordering replacement ones) then take out and put in some hot water, maybe some descaler too, if there is crud dried inside.

Remove jet . Soak in boiling water

Blow through with jet of air

An old guitar string works a treat for unblocking washer jets. Pins etc tend to be too fat

1. Buy guitar
2. Play/wait for 5 years
3. Fix washer jets with old guitar string

HTH 🙃

No visible access to the washer pipes, it’s all under a bloody big bit of plastic that from watching on YouTube needs me to be removing the wipers to access and be able to remove the jets. not a job I fancy doing a few hours before I have to set off and in the pouring rain. Don’t want to risk having no working jets at all

I would be really surprised if it would still be frozen as it’s been 8+ and wet for a good week or so and we’ve driven around a fair bit. Popping a joint due to freezing seems likely, we didn’t have any antifreeze to start with in as it’s not normally that cold on the south coast.

Garage said it can’t fit us in till end of jan!

If your using anti freeze that’ll be where the gunk that’s blocking them has come from.

Please don’t use antifreeze in your washer bottle.

Wang in some hot water. Get an assistant to operate the washers. See if you can hear any leaking, but its so windy with sideways rain you may struggle
If it sprays you in the face at least it wont be cold.

By anti freeze I meant washer stuff from Halfords that says undiluted down to minus 10. Normally we just have plain tap water.

Hot water in washer is a simple thing I can test without taking the car apart

Sludge at the bottom of the washer fluid tank? Our BMW had that happen.

Garage said it can’t fit us in till end of jan!

Try any local (or not so local) chains like  Kwikfits or Halfords Autocares (the latter will do more general repairs)  – they usually have online booking and you can see what slots are available

Might come under the remit of a ‘homestart’ element of your breakdown cover

When ours blocked it was the bottle intake rather than the jets, as above.

I managed to find a joint with a clip so was able to disconnect, blow it back through with a compressor then flush the tank with hot water and sink unblocker.

Since you can’t find a join in the pipe that’s out but can you get to the back of the jets where you were planning to replace?

I’ve also blown down the nozzle directly by pressing the compressor on to the jet nozzle. Maybe a bike pump and fabricated gasket could get some air in there? Then drain and flush the tank.

If there are 2 jets and it’s just one jet it’ll not be sludge

We have this issue on a BMW X1 at the minute and you have just reminded me I need to try and sort

I was going to try hot water and using an electric air bed pump to try and blow back in to the tank (only a temporary solution)

All the stuff on BMWs says its the pump filters that get blocked, which means removing the wheel arch liner to get to the pump 🙁

Had this recently 13 plate kia, it was the washer pump was broken. bought one off ebay and had it fitted by mechanic. Was half hour job for them.

By anti freeze I meant washer stuff from Halfords that says undiluted down to minus 10. Normally we just have plain tap water.

Live in the South.

That will be limescale in the jets.

Use DI water only.

Guitar string , what about an old gear cable and if too thick a strand from it
The ready mix fluid another consumable shot up in price probably much more than 12%

If limescale, try Kilrock (the gel version) and carefully apply to the nozzles. Leave a couple of mins and rinse. Take care with paintwork etc but worked well for me.

It’s a Kia, the non return valves in the washers gunk up. I cleared mine by using a bike pump to shoot compressed air up it. That big lump of plastic isn’t too hard to get off but as you say does require removing wipers!

A useful tool for things like this is jet cleaning set/files. All different sizes for different size gas / carb jets but work well on any small orifice. Got a old BOC one.

@FunkyDunk Ours was a BMW – blow out, sink cleaner, hot water, then only use one brand of fluid (Prestone) and don’t let it run out to avoid gumming and we’ve been good for 6 months or more. No garage trip needed but you are right, that’s the ‘official’ fix.

I’m aware that prestone and whatever Ford use as standard don’t play well together and create a bit of a nasty gel in the tank when mixed which resulted in the same symptoms (on rubbish washer, one just about working) on our 56 plate Kuga.

Needed replacement pump in the end, but you can get away with blowing the gel back into the reservoir a couple of times.

If you’re not often using anything it’s unlikely to be this though…

Our were blocked as the pump filter was crudded up, one jet v slow, other dribbling, with filter removed they were fine, new pump filter needed (*or more likely a new pump)

A great and almost instant solution I use for clearing is putting powerful descaler on the jets. It can be done either with a small paintbrush or using an empty biro tube as a pipette. The best descaler by far is Kilrock-Mega K . It’s available on Amazon and fantastic for descaling the kettle too.

With all of the rain we’ve been having, the horrible grey crap on the roads from the gritting should have been washed away, so minimal need for the washers, I’d have thought. I use Rain-x additive in my washer bottle on the car, as well as the spray coating on the screen, seems to work ok, but I’ve only had the car a couple of years, and it’s three years old now, so with luck I’ve avoided the build up of sludge from years of mixing different types of garage forecourt washer additives.

Hmm tried blowing air down (using a air bed electric pump) and hot water

They have got worse to the point not working apart from a dribble on the first pump of the motor

Quickfit have said ~£60 to take out the wheel arch and clean out the filters

So you’ve moved the blockage further down the system. Can you blow it the other way?

I’m aware that prestone and whatever Ford use as standard don’t play well together and create a bit of a nasty gel in the tank when mixed which resulted in the same symptoms (on rubbish washer, one just about working) on our 56 plate Kuga.

This happened to me. They had to strip and rebuild the whole system to get it all out.

take them off, attach to track pump and blast them clean with compressed air

for the tubes, massage carefully to loosen the crud that keeps blocking them, then blast through with washer fluid.

anything else will just result in them blocking again

£60 sounds like a good deal for that dirty job

Common for BMWs and BMW Minis to get gunk in the pump that means they only dribble.

That’s pretty common in BMW owners also.

Finally got ours sorted at the local garage this morning for £43.

They said they get it all the time as we live in a hard water area.

Which concentrated screen wash then going forward ? It would appear that most stuff contains stuff that blocks filters over time ?

They said they get it all the time as we live in a hard water area.

Which concentrated screen wash then going forward ? It would appear that most stuff contains stuff that blocks filters over time ?

If the problem is hard water perhaps you need to use ready mixed rather than anything from concentrate and not use anything from the tap

I’ve only ever used Halfords stuff in the big car with no issues. Usually just at the minimum dilution all summer, then straight to neat in the autumn.

Whatever I put in the midget had turned to jelly, thankfully it doesn’t have a pump and the tank is held in my a leather strap so it’s an easy fix!

Prestone Extreme works for me, I’m in a hard water area too (water comes from a chalk aquifer or chalk streams).