Happily whizzing along the road last night. Went to wipe screen and the
****ing screenwash froze onto the screen. Luckily I was able to pull over and clear it safely.Checked container and it's rated to work down to -2C. Adsas budget range.
That'll teach me.
Yep. When they run out of the “good” stuff they load the shelves with the piss-poor stuff and hope nobody notices.
Tim
Premix? I make a point of buying the concentrate[*] and then use it more concentrated than it says on the instructions on the basis that a fill in summer, when it's fine to use it diluted, may not be used up until into winter, when freezing is a problem.
[*] used to be Wilko's finest at 99p a litre, not sure where best to get it now.Theo
I've got some that was labelled -10c and that froze as well. :( The contents of the windscreen washer bottle may not have frozen but the output jets may have had a frozen plug. Possibly any alcohol type components may evaporate in output jet just leaving water to freeze.
I use a concentrate neat in winter. A year ago I could get it at 99p, this year it's £1.99.
I used to have a car that had an after market heat exchanger, which used heat from the engine coolant to heat the nozzles and the water for the screen washer.
“Concentrate” is a bit meaningless without knowing its strength (or at least freezing point). I bought some -20C ready mixed stuff the other day but I can see “concentrate” for sale that only protects to -12C.
It’s all weasel words to obfuscate.
Tim
Doesn't your car have heated washer jets? My last two have had heated jets and it makes a real difference. Also ensure you have proper screenwash and don't over dilute in the winter.
Ours here come in colours (likely yours do too).
There is green and blue, and the green is -40C. It's reasonably good, and the wiper gets most of it before it freezes. The blue tends to stick a bit on the windscreen. The blue might be -30C.
I have used the -40C stuff year round, as it did a decent job of bugs (back when there were bugs).
They make a red for summer here, with a detergent added, and it is intended for bugs (back when there were bugs). There's no longer quite as much "bug splat ecosystem" on the screen these days. You'd pull the car in hot, the wasps would smell bug splat and then they'd be buzzing around inspecting things.
And a wiper refill (the rubber bit), costs as much as a wiper. Neither is cheap. That'll give you an incentive to not rip the rubber. Whatever the guiding principle of a "refill" is, the concept disappeared in the mists of time.
Paul
My approach is somewhere in between. In summer I add a lot of water (and a small amount of screenwash) then when winter comes use concentrate and it it is getting really cold use extra concentrate then as the weather warms top up with water only. However, it's all intuition with no proper measurement.
Years ago I used to make my own screenwash from isopropanol, propylene glycol, and water. According to
If part of the water is replaced by IPA the freezing point will be lower. PG isn't that expensive; you can get 5 litres for £23 at Amazon.
Or you could add some PG to Asda budget screenwash to make something which doesn't freeze at -2°C!
Don’t you mean -40F? ;-)
Thankfully we don’t need protection to that degree in the UK but there’s no consistent colour-coding (sorry, color-coding) here.
The trick for retailers here is to sell the weakest screenwash possible, by deception if possible and they’re very good at it.
Tim
It might be -10 when the car is stationary, but, when moving, the air will cause the liquid to evaporate more rapidly (wind-chill, I suppose), and lower its temperature - allowing it to freeze.
I was about to suggest the addition of Isopropyl Alcohol (Isopropanol) to ordinary screenwash and suggest a ratio of 25% for protection to -10C.
I bought some f*** expensive VAG washer fluid this week, which is all I've used since 2011, it has varying dilution ratios
down to -70°C, undiluted down to -40°C, 2:1 down to -35°C, 1:1 down to -16°C, 1:2 Summer use: 1:4
I normally use it 1:5, but in winter, given we don't live in the north pole, I use it at 1:2, put 1/3 of a bottle in the tank and topped up with water (which was part frozen in my watering can)
went to use it the other morning and not a drop sprayed out ... I guess there was some more dilute stuff actually inside the pump that had frozen overnight.
Isopropanol has an azeotrope with water that freezes at -75C. That suggests your fancy washer fluid is standard distilled IPA with some additives.
Last time I bought 5 litres of IPA it cost me £22. And that was 99.5%.
I recommend getting cheap screenwash and adding IPA to get a mix of 20-25%.
It certainly has enough "no smoking" type warnings on it
This was about £11/litre, previous time I bought some it was about £6
The problem I've always found with cheap screen wash, is that it can smell rotten, and breeds some sort of "mother of vinegar" type lurgi in the tank.
That will help, but the problem with IPA is that it evaporates pretty quickly (particularly at higher speeds when air flow across the screen will add to the cooling by increasing the evaporation), cooling surfaces down and in some conditions leading to ice forming. Propylene glycol will not evaporate and will keep the FP very low, preventing icing.
Sounds like it's only got IPA as the antifreeze. It should really have some propylene glycol (or ethylene glycol) in it to prevent the sort of freeze-up you experienced. It's /probably/ safe to use ordinary radiator antifreeze, but I'm not sure what additives they add to the fairly pure ethylene glycol in that.
MSDS lists 7-10% ethylene glycol total VOC > 79% (only ethanol listed, no IPA) plus < 5% anionic surfactants (to attach to the grime?) and perfume (it does smell good!) later it says ethanol solution (so probably most of the rest is water)
At £6 I've always considered it good stuff, at £11 I think I muttered "wow" at the parts counter, I'd asked for a couple of bottles, then got home and found I had a full bottle in the boot already.
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