Heated washer jets retro fit.

Has anyone fitted an aftermarket washer bottle heater to their car?
How well did it defrost the screen, what type did you use?

AFAIK the water is heated on the way from the bottle to the jets, or at the jets themselves.
Our Volvo has them and the thing is that warm water will soon freeze on a windscreen if it’s cold enough.

I remember as a lad, my dad pouring warm water from the kettle on the windscreen.

It turned instantly to sheet ice and prob took longer to defrost. Lesson learnt.

Shirley the idea of heated washer jets is just to stop the jet itself from freezing and becoming useless? Not to actually de-ice your screen?

Wouldn’t the anti freeze in the washer fluid prevent re-freezing?

When I worked in Moscow the done thing was to use neat vodka in a squeezy bottle. Mind you, that was a long while ago when every car was a Lada or a Merc.

Shirley the idea of heated washer jets is just to stop the jet itself from freezing and becoming useless?

Yes it is.
We have them on our car, and, as far as I can tell, they don’t make the slightest difference. I wouldn’t bother retro fitting them.

On some cars you can wrap the hose around something that gets warm (not hot!) Like pipes to cabin heater. You might need to lengthen the pipe to do it though (easy enough).

Ditto, have them on my car and they seem pointless.

“I remember as a lad, my dad pouring warm water from the kettle on the windscreen.

It turned instantly to sheet ice and prob took longer to defrost. Lesson learnt.”

Where did you grow up – alaska?

I still do what your dad does to this day , works great , much kinder to paint work than deicer and kinder to the screen than a scraper.

The old whisky distillery workers used the waste water years ago. Better than anti freeze.

trail_rat – Member
“I remember as a lad, my dad pouring warm water from the kettle on the windscreen.

It turned instantly to sheet ice and prob took longer to defrost. Lesson learnt.”

Where did you grow up – alaska?

I still do what your dad does to this day , works great , much kinder to paint work than deicer and kinder to the screen than a scraper.

+1

The trick to using warm water on the windcreen is to have the wipers at the ready. On a sub-zero morning you have seconds before it starts freezing over again. Pour water. Wipers on. Job done.

Heated washer bottle sounds a recipe for disaster to me. Spray water onto your windcreen without antifreeze while travelling at 60mph in those temps….it can’t end well, surely?

This seems to get good reviews
http:/www.heatshot.com/uk/[/url]
any reason it shouldn’t work?

My dad has something along the lines of this fitted to his Ranger (he was missing heated windscreens if previous cars), he seems to rate it and from what I’ve seen they work pretty well, I’ll try and find out what kit it is.

I’ll be testing effectiveness this year as one of my oe heaters has burned out 😆 I’m pretty confident they make a difference in actually keeping the squirties going, my last car didn’t have the heaters and they often wouldn’t work until the car was good and hot.

Hot water on a freezing cold car on a cold day may be better for the paintwork, but it can cause serious damage to things from the windscreen to the drains, especially if the water re-freezes quickly.

Yep hot water is bad. Use warm water.

Hot water can crack your wind screen.

Not actually sure if this is true but my brothers mates car (apparently) didn’t freeze up like the other cars in the street. He eventually remembered the grass, leaves and other vegetation in the boot that was meant to go to the dump months ago, had been composting in its bags and must have been keeping the car warm.

PSA * A plastering trowel does not make a good scraper.*

A friend of mine did the animation videos for that HeatShot device and its a very nicely made bit of kit. It’s very useful for the summer as hotter water is much better for getting bugs off the screen. I’ll ask him how good it is. They aren’t cheap though.

Just buy a Ford with heated screen

Funky,selling Ford with lovely heated screen. Didn’t want our next car to be limited to one manufacturer.

fords patent ran out… so you dont have to buy a ford – just a car new enough to have been released after the patent ran out 😀 – so i wont be having a heated windscreen anytime soon – although there are some interesting retrofit options for land rovers which might make their way into my build – anyone thts driven an old landy will understand why 😀

I still do what your dad does to this day , works great , much kinder to paint work than deicer and kinder to the screen than a scraper.

And the water then freezes all over the road or pavement…

They’re useless; the water freezes in the plastic pipes under the bonnet or even in the reservoir. Even if you can get it unfrozen it freezes the second it hits the windscreen.

“And the water then freezes all over the road or pavement…”

does water fly ?

On a sub-zero morning you have seconds before it starts freezing over again. Pour water. Wipers on. Job done.

Actually I’ve found the opposite…. more luke warm water then heats the screen above the point at which it will freeze the water. The wipers will still leave a very thin film of water which is more susceptible to freezing.

And the water then freezes all over the road or pavement…

err, only if you park on the pavement.

Heated front windscreen is brilliant for sure, but doesn’t clean the screen when it gets shitty. Heated windscreen nozzles are crap, I use neat antifreeze which seems to work better. Had no issues with paintwork with using antifreeze in all my 20 yrs of motoring.

antifreeze ? as in the stuff you stick in your radiator – blue or pink ?

i use neat concentrate screenwash in the colder months and never had an issue with it freezing – reminds me i need to fill both the cars.

kinder to the screen than a scraper

What are you scraping it with??

a plastering trowel obviously DUH ! 😀

Screen wash, used neat will never freeze.

I’ve had it freeze- but that was in stupidly cold conditions with strong windchill. Got a momentary weak squirt then both squirties packed up- it doesn’t need to be frozen solid to stop them working I suppose.

That stuff was supposed to be good down to -27, according to a quick google. Probably better washer fluid is available but I don’t think most people plan for -30 degrees!

when i lived down in drumtochty glen it froze- but it was down to -28 outside the house.

van wouldnt start – on straight diesel.

land rover wasnt happy starting but eventually turned over – on a mix of petrol and diesel at recommendation of last owner for cold weather.

no idea what the squirties were doing but i figured if diesel wasnt happy , screen wash wasnt going to help 😀

OK, @ -27 it’s going to freeze at the jets, bet there’s not may here that gets uitthat cold regularly though!. But that’s where a heated jet does help 🙂

We had -24 in Aviemore and once I’d got the bottle un-frozen I tipped in the contents of two squirty bottles of neat windscreen deicer. After that the washers worked but just produced a mess of blue slush.

Screen wash, used neat will never freeze.

It’s also the best smell in the world. Possibly even better than Bacon.

Autoglym screen wash, correctly diluted wont freeze, have used it neat when I used to winter in the Alps.
Golf Syncro had heated washer jets too which really helped