[bendrick]

Had exactly the same symptoms on my car


I've done it a couple of times on my MK 1 just by taking off the couple of screws from the plastic shield in front of the drivers front wheel and folding it back ( with the wheel still on but it would give more space with it off obviously). I didn't have to lift out or remove the whole bottle, it stayed in place when I did it.


The pump can be lifted out of the washer bottle and the filter cleaned out, bacterial growth forms into a sort of jellied gloop which blocks the filter. While the pump and little rubber filter are out run a hose or just a couple of jugs full of clean water into the water bottle top to flush out the gloop lying in the bottom of the reservoir which just flushes out of the hole left by the removed pump onto the ground, otherwise you will find the pump blocked up again in no time even the next day.

( I stupidly just cleaned out the filter without flushing the reservoir the first twice I did it until I realised that it was pointless without flushing out the rest of the gloop that must have been lying on the bottom of the tank because the rest of it just blocked up the filter again in no time) The filter hasn't blocked again for about 18 months since doing this.

This is what I did to sort my problem out successfully but I don't want to contradict anything the experts have laid out here as they know a lot more than me about these things.


I'm a complete strapper and won't attempt anything even remotely complicated in case of disaster but found this operation fairly easy if not a little fiddly. If the pump requires replacing then obviously it is just as easy to do as the old pump is already out and a new one just needs to be popped back in its place.