08 9-5 Aero Washer pump confusion

[MitchMeister03]

Hello All. Been slowly fixing and doing maintenance on the Aero since the previous person did nothing. When I was doing brakes and rotors on the front, I decided to tackle the strange intermittent washer pump issues I've been having. The headlight pump always works, every time. The windshield pump likes to work randomly. I figured the windscreen pump was failing, and since I really couldn't care less about the light pump that I'd just swap the pumps, since they are they same pump. I did this, checked all the wiring and it looked good. Go and try the washers....... and only the light pump works. From what I'm seeing the wiring goes to both pumps, and there's only one fuse/relay. Anyone have any thoughts on this? It's not a huge issue, but it gets quite dusty and there's tons of pollen in texas this time of year.

[walawala]

you might have a broken water hose.

[DozerBoy]

Hey there, Mitch.

I had the same intermittent issue with my windshield washer pump a few winters ago. Same symptoms as you: intermittent windshield spray and consistent headlight spray. Eventually, I didn't have any windshield spray at all. After looking at the wiring and suspecting a faulty anti-drainback valve, I discovered that it was actually the pump itself. I'm going to guess that some water got into the pump casing and caused the pump motor to die a slow death (thereby creating the intermittent fault). When I took it out of the car, the casing was cracked and absolutely packed with rust (as soon as I figure out how to post photos, I'll throw some up here).

My guess as to why this happens is that the windshield pump is located lower on the reservoir than the headlight pump and, therefore, is subjected to more moisture and abuse.

Long answer short: I'd double check the windshield pump. Make sure that it's in good condition and actually pumping fluid before you start digging into more complicated things like wiring and plumbing.

Hope this helps.

[MitchMeister03]

Well, it works occasionally. Like this morning, it pumped fine. So I doubt it's a hose. And I thought it was the pump, but I literally switched them, the headlight for the windshield, and the one that's in the headlight slot ALWAYS works, while the one that's in the windshield slot goes off occasionally.