Accidentally poured windshield wiper fluid in radiator?
This happened to me.. so I have some suggestions.
First.. don't panic!! LOL.. its going to be ok :)
Worst case senario: drain the fluid out of the vehicle and
replace it. I wouldn't do that just yet though. Read on and learn a
bit.
There is some good news: Windshield wiper fluid is mostly water.
Honestly, Im not sure what the 5% of other stuff in the windshield
wiper fluid will do. Im thinking that there is a seal in the water
pump, so it might damage that. You could leave it in and not do a
thing and hope nothing bad will happen. Since I have a new vehicle
chose to NOT go with this plan.
A question for you: Did you put it directly in the radiator or
in the coolant reservoir? I put mine in the reservoir. This is what
I did to fix my problem.
This is what I did. I opened my radiator cap, not all vehicles
allow you to do this. I used a turkey baster to check the fluid in
the radiator. Mine was all coolant. That was good news.
Now take a look at the reservoir, you MIGHT notice a difference
in the color of the fluid. Coolant is usually red, green, or
yellow. Windshield wiper fluid is generally blue. So lets hope you
can see the difference. Lets hope that the fluids have not mixed.
Mine didnt. In mine the windshield wiper fluid stayed on top.
In my vehicle the reservoir is used when the vehicle gets hot.
The fluid is then stored in the reservoir. Also, if, for whatever
reason, the vehicle loses some fluid, it uses the extra fluid in
the reservoir to replace the fluid that is missing.
So good news for me, the windshield wiper fluid was trapped in
the reservoir and only there. Lets hope that yours is as well
:)
So I took a look at the reservoir and tried to figure out how to
get the fluid out. It looked much to difficult to remove the
reservoir... but what else could I do. So, as a man usually does, I
looked at it for a while and prayed. Then it came to me: Suck the
windshield wiper fluid out of the reservoir. BINGO! I grabbed my
wet-vac and cut myself 2 feet of old garden hose. I slide the
garden hose into the vacuums hose and used some duct tape to seal
it. I slide the garden hose down into the reservoir and turned the
vacuum on. I sucked out the windshield wiper fluid and whatever
coolant that was in the reservoir. Viola!
I replaced the coolant with some new fluid and that was
that!!