poor windscreen washers

[holtie]

I've just found the problem with my windscreen washers (2002 2.0DTi LS). The problem was the pump had to be running about 5 seconds before anything came out the jets and then there was not much pressure from the jets on the winscreen - the rear was fine. I took filter out the bottle and cleaned but no improvement - I guessed as much as the rear was working fine.

I tracked the problem to a little non-return valve at the motor end. It is located in the elbow straight off the pump. The rubber valve had been screwed up (probably by ice in the system when I got the washers working during last weeks cold weather).

It was partially blocking the pipe and allowing the screenwash to run back into the reservoir. I had to remove and refit the little valve (it is a tiny bit of rubber under a tiny plastic spacer - about 7mm diameter). I also found if I pushed the valve/spacer down into the elbow housing as far as it would go it did not work. I had to push it down so far and then fit the elbow onto the pump until it clicked.

It seems to work fine now. Hope this is of help to someone.