sween Posted December 13, 2010 Report Share Posted December 13, 2010 Started when we go tthe first bad frost but we've now had a few days above 0deg so they should have started working again. There is a tiny spurt when I first ask of them then nothing although I can hear the motor spinning. Rear and headlamp washers work fine. There was plenty of fluid in at a (I thought) a decent level of concentration. Any ideas anyone?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neemz Posted November 18, 2011 Report Share Posted November 18, 2011 if you can just about hear the motor spinning or sounding sickly it could be a few things. commonly the pump will fail, i don't know what age or type BMW you have but on the E46/E39 era a german built pump oem equivalanet can be purchased for around £10 on ebay. for an e39 and i believe the e46 is the same (or at least similar) the pump resides in the driver side wheel arch. jack car up and remove front driver wheel. remove wheel arch, you will see the resevoir in front of you and the pump(s) connected to it. if you have headlight washers or its a touring you can have upto 3 pumps to drive the respective circuits. in the first instance i would fill the washer resevoir up with water and then start the ignition and pull the washer stalk to see if you can see water leaking out from the pump. if no leaking it means blocked pump or gunged up resevoir. pull the pump carefully out the resevoir upwards and you will get wet knees as water and lots of gunk from the bottom of the tank empties out. flush water through it with the hose and it will clean that out. you should have a plastic sieve like rubber grommet thing that the pump fits into, consider replacing this, cost is about a quid from BMW. i had similar problem on an e39 and it turned out the pump was fine (i replaced it anyway), it was just really gunged up in the bottom of the tank and i flushed it out and fitted the new grommet thing, took about 45 minutes. you may have to buy replacement little popper things to hold the arch liner to the leading edge of the arch. check realoem for all part numbers. of course it could be a blockage or leakage elsewhere in the system once water has left the pump but it should be easy enough to diagnose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milo Posted February 14, 2013 Report Share Posted February 14, 2013 take the push properly out the resevoir up-wards and you will get wet legs as water and lots of crud from the end of the reservoir pipes out. cleanse water through it with the water hose and it will clean that out. I've painstakingly applied a number to each letter of your post and have come up with 259,257,113 Is that right? Do I win? When seagulls follow the trawler it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hopsta Posted February 14, 2013 Report Share Posted February 14, 2013 No I do :grin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chody Posted February 14, 2013 Report Share Posted February 14, 2013 are they heated if they tend to burnout and melt, if not have you tried sticking a pin in them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davyk31 Posted March 12, 2013 Report Share Posted March 12, 2013 Blocked filter at the bottom of pump where it connects to bottle, very common fault and easily fixed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calm Chris Posted May 13, 2013 Report Share Posted May 13, 2013 After 2.5 years maybe the op sorted it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mollox Posted May 13, 2013 Report Share Posted May 13, 2013 Had this myself last month, its a common BMW (and Renault, among others) fault. Easy to fix, pain in the arse to access. In English: Your washer reservoir will have two pumps built into it, one for headlights, one for windscreen, each with an inline filter between pump and tank. The windscreen one is the lower of the two and is sited there to pull as much of that water out. Unfortunately these are known to gunk up due to crud that accumulates in the tank and more specifically chemical reactions between differering detergents. BMW say you should use their screen wash and there might be some merit. Symptoms are the sound of the pump running but a measly dribble of water onto the screen. Once you've gained access to the area, its a simple drain, remove filter (being careful not to drop filter into tank), then clean filter, rinse and refill tank and reassemble. Unfortunately to access the tank you have to remove the right front wheel, disassemble the wheel arch liners, remove the rear one and probe a little deeper. BMW would want c. £150 to do this, so I'd take it to a local indy that will do the job easily and charge you a fraction of that. If you have this problem and are anywhere near High Wycombe I can put you in touch with my man that will do it for a few quid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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