Smell of screenwash?

[Disco Matt]

Very odd problem this - when I get in the car I smell screenwash! It's definitely washer fluid rather than coolant as I've had a quick sniff of the coolant header tank and that's a very different smell, plus the level hasn't dropped.

The smell goes after a minute or two, I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this problem and, if so, did you ever find out where it was coming from?

[barmiebrumie]

Juging where the fluid reserviour is it may well be seeping in underneath it & getting into the carpets, take the bottle out & see if its got a leak or even one of the pumps, seen it when people have blanked of the headlamp washer pipe for winch bumpers  :-k


hope that helps



John

[mac]

There's a large oval grommet below the washer bottle on the sloping bit of the inner wing where a large loom enters the cabin, I had a water leak through it as it wasn't fitted poperly - may be a washer bottle leak or pump/pipe leak running in through there. You should be able to feel if it's wet above the passenger footwell by pulling the carpet back.

[Disco Matt]

I'll have a look. My winch bumper has the headlight washers fitted (as it had a couple of holes to mount them) so there shouldn't be any leaks. The smell seems to come and go, I hadn't noticed it before hence slight worry when I got in this morning and could smell something unusual!

[Range Rover Blues]

Could be nothing.  Air enters the cabin at the base of the windscreen, sometimes I smell screenwash and I think it might have been sloshing around since i last blasted the screen.

[Disco Matt]

Yeah, it had faded this afternoon. The sun came out and it got pretty warm in the car which would naturally help evaporate it. I did find some leaves around one of the washer jets which could have had something to do with it - if they got soaked they'd act like a sponge dipped in screenwash and held near the vents.

[Saffy]

worry if you start tasting it

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/14/pneumonia_screenwash/

well lack of tasting it in fact :lol:

[lurch_917]

also the air intake for the heater is in your wndscreen scuttle on the passanger side with this weather youd be using your wash whipe more thuse more screenwash hanging around in there

[Frankie-Boy]

Next time you go under the car check the heater box drain tubes, these can be found either side of the transmission tunnel near the bell housing, they are about 25mm in diameter and have squashed rubber ends to them, pull the ends off and you'll probably get a cupful of black stinky water running down your arm.

Have fun.  :D

[Disco Matt]

Sounds just like the drains on Mazda MX5s - they have a couple of pipes running down through the bodywork behind the doors which get blocked, leading to water pooling where it shouldn't be. The cure is simple - straighten a bit of garden wire and use it to rod the drain. Only snag is that your feet will be precisely underneath said drain when you're standing in the right place to feed the wire in...

The smell was back again this morning, even though I hadn't used the washers for ages. I can't fathom it at all, but providing it isn't a sign of something about to go horrifically expensively wrong I'll live with it. I've been checking coolant and oil levels and condition hawk-like after the temp gauge started climbing on a hill (it didn't get out of the safe zone in the middle, radiator was half-full of mud, so cleared that and had no repeat of the problem but still!) I would quite like to play in the snow this year after a soggy Britpart spring made it unusable during most of the last lot.

Wonder if I can get some research funding out of being the world's first vehicular hypochondriac? :lol:

[Hightower]

Wonder if I can get some research funding out of being the world's first vehicular hypochondriac? :lol:

Don't worry, you're definitley not the first!!!