Windscreen washers that work
Dale wonders why he has been struggling with his Volvo’s increasingly rubbish washer jets for so long
1997 VOLVO 940 ESTATE
It’s funny how you don’t really appreciate how bad something is until you replace or upgrade it and then you wonder how you coped for so long with such sub-standard equipment. A case in point is the windscreen washer jets on the 940 – not only are they woefully under-powered, but the coverage is laughable and they regularly become blocked, further diminishing their already feeble capabilities.
What prompted me to address this situation was the need to finally get around to fixing that leaking rear screen washer pipe that you may remember from a previous report, which in turn was inspired by having some silicone hose left over from the vacuum system overhaul.
Fixing the rear washer was as simple as feeding a length of new hose from the washer bottle, through the bulkhead and back onto the connector that continues back to the rear window. With that portion of the job complete I moved on to the front screen. Apparently, a good upgrade to the windscreen washer jets is to install those from a Volvo V70 because they are backwards compatible and provide a much better spray pattern. So with these ordered I set about removing the originals.
Upon fitting I immediately noticed an improvement in the jets, but still felt that they lacked the required power to make them a viable alternative. The system is shared by the headlight washers and therefore the overall efficiency of the operation is diminished by the fact that two extra motors are fighting for power. I had read that removing these improved the intensity of the windscreen washers and since I didn’t really need them in this country – coupled with the fact that one side didn’t even work anyway – I decided to do away with them – the weight-saving benefits cannot be overlooked either.
Access is simple so it wasn’t long before I had removed both motors from behind the headlights, together with the wipers and pipes, and capped off the connections at the washer bottle. Now that the system is much smaller with only the front and rear screens sharing the load, the new jets not only have a better spray pattern but they also have the required power to effectively cover and clean the entire windscreen.
It may not seem like a huge job in the grand scheme of things but cheap, simple little enhancements like this are always worth doing. Having not been able to wash the windscreen properly when I’m stuck behind a lorry on a dreary day for a few months now, it’s now a revelation. But of course, I also need new wiper blades…