75ZT Community

I've often wondered why some people are convinced that it's windscreen washer additive that causes the horrible sludge / slime that sometimes infests washer bottles an gets into filters pumps and jets. I always use it and have not seen any signs of the horrible slime.

However I think I might now know. I had to clean out a bottle full of the slimy stuff this evening, and some of the blackish greenish mess had picked up the blue colour from the additive that had been put in after the horrible gunk had formed. So some of it looked decidely like the additive had been the cause of the gunk.

I remain convinced the gunk had been caused when plain water was used, and only appeared to be due to the additive because that came after the gunk was formed.

Apologies if this makes no sense to anyone, I've been sniffing washer fluid fumes.......

can i have some of what you are on Duncan are you sure its only washer fluid fumes ?

I think i understand your post but dont understand why plain water would cause the gunk ?

Just leave some plain water in a bottle, and see what horrible stuff starts to grow. The trouble is, it's never properly pure water.

Duncan wrote:Just leave some plain water in a bottle, and see what horrible stuff starts to grow. The trouble is, it's never properly pure water.

Are you still drawing water from a well?

Our water is so highly chlorinated that I'm sure it would kill anything, including me if I drank it.

Tap water is purified (if you can call it that) by flushing with chlorine gas. If you leave freshly drawn water to stand for an hour or so the chlorine will disappear into the atmosphere. Once gone all sorts of bacteria will rapidly reproduce, hence green/black slime will form. If using plain tap water in washer bottles, a drop of bleach should keep it bacteria free.