Front, rear and headlamp washers all run off separate pumps -

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=1E72-EUR-06-2014-F21-BMW-125d&diagId=61_2896

You should be able to hear the pump running if you have your head near the wheel arch.

Cleaning the front jets is easy enough - pull the hose off under the bonnet and blow down it with a compressor, and then remove the jets from the bonnet and prise apart with a screwdriver to make sure they are clean. That said, it's quite likely that the problem is actually the filter in the tank (parts 2 and 3 on the diagram) becoming blocked with slime, for which the best solution is to pull the tank out and clean it properly - not too terrible a job, but it involves jacking the car up and removing the front wheel and wheel arch liner to get at the tank.

 

Cheers spl123, can't hear any pump running, so will have a look at nozzles but going in for a service at the dealers soon may just wait till then.

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If the pump isn't trying, check your fuses.

 

Cheers Marco, fuses are in the engine bay, yeah?

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Engine bay (black box under passenger side wiper grill) or in the boot (under floor).

 

Cheers spl123, can't hear any pump running, so will have a look at nozzles but going in for a service at the dealers soon may just wait till then.

Bear in mind dealers will not fix blocked up washers under warranty if you've used anything other than official BMW washer fluid. From having done it myself, pulling the washer tank and cleaning it is probably 60 -90 minutes of labour, so £120 - £200 at dealer labour rates.

 

Fair shout. As per Marco's note just had a listen for the pump .... Nothing doing. Will check the fuses and if not will jack it up at the weekend :-(

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Cheers spl123, can't hear any pump running, so will have a look at nozzles but going in for a service at the dealers soon may just wait till then.

Bear in mind dealers will not fix blocked up washers under warranty if you've used anything other than official BMW washer fluid. From having done it myself, pulling the washer tank and cleaning it is probably 60 -90 minutes of labour, so £120 - £200 at dealer labour rates.

Tell me about it. They charged me £90 to do mine about 5 years ago. Car was in for service and they rang to say it was ready but rear washers didn't work and did I want them to clean out the pipes. I foolishly said ok thinking it was 5mins with an air line. I wouldn't have minded so much if they had advised me to use genuine BMW fluid after that. I didn't realise and so two years later it needed doing again. After looking on here i did the job myself, converted the rear jet to twin and now only use genuine fluid. No problems at all since

 

Sounds like good advice. Ran compressed air through the pipes, all clear .... Definitely no pimp running, In for a service on Tuesday will see what that brings!!

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No pump either ;-)

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Tell me about it. They charged me £90 to do mine about 5 years ago. Car was in for service and they rang to say it was ready but rear washers didn't work and did I want them to clean out the pipes. I foolishly said ok thinking it was 5mins with an air line. I wouldn't have minded so much if they had advised me to use genuine BMW fluid after that. I didn't realise and so two years later it needed doing again. After looking on here i did the job myself, converted the rear jet to twin and now only use genuine fluid. No problems at all since

Yes, the genuine fluid is a sensible precaution - plus if you get it on eBay, it's not even that much more expensive than Tesco's own...

 

Well had the car serviced today and the front washers problem checked. First they asked was, What type of scree wash do you use? Followed by that will be £120 if it is blocked and you don't use genuine BMW screen wash! As it turns out it was a failed pump, covered under warranty .. Phew! Though will be investing in some of the genuine stuff after they refilled it [emoji1]

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Glad I found this thread saved me a trip to the garage had the bottle out and cleaned the filters yesterday and all working again.

I was telling a friend about what I'd done and he mentioned its not actually the brand of fluid that matters, its that some is alcohol-based and other stuff isn't and if you switch between the two it can react and cause a film that will stick to the filters. Also just using water can cause the algae type stuff to grow but the most fluid is inhospitable to any kind of life so the most likely cause will be a reaction between different types of fluids. Don't actually know how true that is but made sense to me and I had a bottle of RAC branded screenwash in which is alcohol based so will just stick to that!

 

The BMW screenwash concentrate is more concentrated than most of the 3rd.-party equivalents, so when you dilute to the same °C level, it works out at about twice the pence/litre. Based on my usage, that's about £10-£12/year more than using 3rd.-party stuff. Which seems worth the premium to me, given the time/cost of any issues around mixing different types. And bear in mind any BMW garage will always top-up using the BMW stuff.

The BMW 5 litre container is much more cost-effective than 5x 1L bottles and the last time I bought was part no 83122298207 but it's worth checking with the parts dept or on the Amazon description. Here's the container itself:

The other thing the instructions say is that you should dilute the concentrate separately, before you add it to the reservoir. They don't say why, perhaps if you put it in directly, it just sits on the bottom of the reservoir and doesn't mix?

The BMW Owner's Manual is absolutely clear (at least mine is) about not mixing BMW and non-BMW concentrates. Forums in the UK and US have enough threads on the topic to make it clear it is a real issue - not just a BMW aftersales ploy. My main beef with BMW is that no one points this out to you when you buy a car from them: one of the most likely things a new owner is going to do before fully reading through the Owners Manual in fine detail is to top up the screenwash.

 

Hi all,
My car has the same problem, but i can hear the pump working??
I have had the pipes blown through then it worked for about 10 mins then stopped again. Was told by a garage near me that the motor would have to be replaced?? and its a major job, I have used BMW screenwash but its still not working, dont know if they are just trying to get money out of me being a woman but i need it fixing as its in for MOT soon, anyone any ideas what i can do myself please. (the back wash isnt working either but can still hear the motor working just nothing coming out??)

TIA

 

If it temporarily worked after having the pipes blown back, the motor should be fine.

Once the washer bottle is already full of gunk, it is hard to clean it out. I'd attack it from the top if possible, pass a pipe/hose down into the bottom of the tank, try to blow/float all the black slimy yuk out the top.

Removing the bottle is unnecessarily complicated/expensive as it's built inside the wing. Not impossible, but labour intensive for such a silly problem.

 

Seems i have the same issue, pump sounds like it's working fine, but hardly any water coming out of the front or rear water jets, we have quite a powerful water hose in work, will it damage anything if i put it in the tank to try and flush the sh!t out?

 

I wouldn't go full blast, no need for too much pressure to get any crap to float up and out the top.

I used a bicycle stirrup pump on my friends Mazda.

 

I used an old bicycke pump to flush my pipes

 

Cheers guys will have a look at lunch....

 

Quick update, it seems like the washer bottle filter was blocked, i unclipped the hose attached the bonnet and blew compressed air down the tube, after a couple of seconds and a little geezer coming out the washer bottle a load of blue coloured slime came out, i poured some warm water into the bottle, left it for a few mins, and blew it through again, and a bit more gunk came out, re-connected and the washers are working fine, better than they have done.

i am sure their will be more gunk in there, so i will repeat the process in a few days, and refill with the below Blucol screen washer recommended by Marco.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bluecol-Co...t=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046556&hvtargid=pla-719227544118&psc=1

 

Good to hear
I had that problem on my previous BMW (3 series E46)
Removing the whole bottle on that was easy, and the amount of gunk that had built up over more than 10 years was staggering

 

Good to hear
I had that problem on my previous BMW (3 series E46)
Removing the whole bottle on that was easy, and the amount of gunk that had built up over more than 10 years was staggering

Thats my worry, i may have dislodged some, but their may be more, see how it goes, i know they need to be compact but their should be easier access to the filters if they are prone to blocking.

 

All mine was on the filter which I could easily remove and give a proper clean, it was like a very thick layer of gunk
It was a 2004 model ,so no doubt over the years they had made it harder to access

 

2011 BMW 1 series fuses all ok. New pump still not working checked all fuses even behind osr light unit.

 

Oh dear, may need to start checking wiring. Before that though, just make sure the connection on the pump connector plug is sound - you've obviously had it off to change the pump, make sure the connections are not oxidised.