Bad smell from washer bottle

ION08

The water in my washer bottle must have gone stale because it fills the car with a horrible smell that can only be described as smelly socks when spraying the windscreen.

Ideally I'd like to completely remove the reservoir, flush it out, clean it and fill it with some fresh fluid but it seems like that would be a complete headache!

Do you think spraying out all the water out and then just refilling it with a decent alcohol based solution would sort it?

Has anyone experienced this before?

colm_mcm

Had to do this on her car. Had to use a bottle brush as there was scum on the inside of the reservoir.

Marcusm

Get some alcohol based spray into it quickly. The bad smell is bacterial; legionella (which causes Legionnaire's disease) has been shown to grow in car washer bottles as well as building air con systems. It can be fatal....

ION08

colm_mcm wrote: »

Had to do this on her car. Had to use a bottle brush as there was scum on the inside of the reservoir.

I took one out on the GF's old Getz before which was as easy as pie but seems a lot harder on my A4.

Also, wouldn't using a brush just free up all the crud which could block the jets?

colm_mcm

ION08 wrote: »

I took one out on the GF's old Getz before which was as easy as pie but seems a lot harder on my A4.

Also, wouldn't using a brush just free up all the crud which could block the jets?

I flushed it with boiling water afterwards.

ION08

Marcusm wrote: »

Get some alcohol based spray into it quickly. The bad smell is bacterial; legionella (which causes Legionnaire's disease) has been shown to grow in car washer bottles as well as building air con systems. It can be fatal....

Yeah i heard of that before actually. Might just go out now, remove the hoses from the jets and spary it out that way. Hopefully it wont burn out the washer motor. :-/

ION08

Right, DONE!

Sprayed out all of the old stale water, thankfully there wasn't as much in the reservoir as I had feared - two 20 second sprays and it was all out, which is great as I was concerned about burning out the motor.

I wiped as much of the dirt from the top as I could reach and threw in 1L of Boiling hot water and sprayed it all out again.

Flew down to my local Topaz but all they had were small overpriced concentrate bottles that didnt seem to contain any alcohol, I then remembered that LIDL recently had a car special and luckily managed to pick up 2 bottles of this alochol based screenwash just before closing (seems like great stuff!).




Filled up the reservoir with the entire 5L bottle (undiluted), gave it another few sprays and topped it up again.

Also threw in a new pollen filter which I had picked up earlier on in the week.

Put the fans on full blast, gave the washers another few sparays and smells fresh as a daisy!!

Fingers crossed I didn't contract any Legionnaire's disease!!!

CJhaughey

I use a dose of bleach every few fills, probably 100mls to the washer bottle (5l)which works very well as a antibacterial agent.
I do wish they brought back filters in the filler neck of the bottle though.

ION08

CJhaughey wrote: »

I use a dose of bleach every few fills, probably 100mls to the washer bottle (5l)which works very well as a antibacterial agent.
I do wish they brought back filters in the filler neck of the bottle though.

The thought of putting some bleach in did cross my mind but would that not harm the wiperblades or even paint?

I actually have a removable filter in the filler neck of mine :cool:

ba_barabus

Empty bottle contents.

Pour in bottle of mouthwash plus half a litre of water. Flush system.

Refill with washer fluid undiluted.

Add a shot of good vodka.

No more smell.

If it's really bad remove the bottle and clean it.

ION08

ba_barabus wrote: »

Empty bottle contents.

Pour in bottle of mouthwash plus half a litre of water. Flush system.

Refill with washer fluid undiluted.

Add a shot of good vodka.

No more smell.

If it's really bad remove the bottle and clean it.

It's done now but i do like the mouthwash and vodka idea to clean it out!

CJhaughey

ION08 wrote: »

The thought of putting some bleach in did cross my mind but would that not harm the wiperblades or even paint?

I actually have a removable filter in the filler neck of mine :cool:

Bleach in that quantity won't do any harm to paint or rubber.
Sunlight will do more harm to rubber than a dilute bleach solution.

Chimaera

If you use the washer regularly it shouldn't get stinky. It's just from the water sitting for too long and going stagnant.

Easy way to empty the washer bottle without removing it is pop off the pump from the side of it: it's usually just held in with a rubber bung.

Marcusm

Marcusm wrote: »

Get some alcohol based spray into it quickly. The bad smell is bacterial; legionella (which causes Legionnaire's disease) has been shown to grow in car washer bottles as well as building air con systems. It can be fatal....

Legionella is commonly found, you're probably over 1000 times more likely to die in a rta than develop legionnaires disease from a windscreen washer battle, several thousand times I would think.

ba_barabus

Augeo wrote: »

Legionella is commonly found, you're probably over 1000 times more likely to die in a rta than develop legionnaires disease from a windscreen washer battle, several thousand times I would think.

I'd reckon there's more chance of being killed by an actual legionnaire in Dublin

Thoie

That happened me before, but it wasn't from stagnant water. I'd filled it with a particular washer liquid, and the garage topped it up with something different during a service a while later. The combination of the two smelled like tom cat pee, and filled the the entire car each time.

Ended up spraying it all out, filling with plain water, sprayed that out, another dose of plain water, which I let spray out naturally over time.

For future reference, where abouts is the pipe coming out of the reservoir? Would you need to get under the car to see it? All I can see in the top down view under the bonnet is the neck of the reservoir, which then disappears down somewhere.