Gunk in washer tank

[garethdeb]

Hi folks
Just thought I'd share this week's fix on the X.
The screen washers stopped working on our way to Cardiff last Saturday towing the caravan. Whilst on site I had a look and found the pump was running but nothing coming out of the jets. When I looked in the tank I saw tons of black gunk and also the plastic ring from a bottle of screen wash!
I took the two plastic 10mm nuts off holding the tank in and removed the three pumps and the level sensor plug. When I pulled out the filters that the pumps push into they were thick with this 'orrible black slimy gunk. I washed off the filters and rinsed out the tank with detergent and put everything back to rights and now I have powerful washer jets again!
Just thought I'd share that in case anyone else has a similar problem.
Any ideas as to where the slimy gunk came from? I know she's 12 years old now but never had that before in older cars.
Regards
Gareth

[Sanj]

[quote="garethdeb"]
Any ideas as to where the slimy gunk came from?
[/quote]

Halfords! Or such like - thisis from Imy's car.

[X5Sport]

.....and it's why I now buy 5-litre cans of BMW Screenwash.  Never had a problem after getting 'gunk' in my E53 tank about 5 years ago.  Some of the screen washes contain stuff that bacteria love to munch on, and leave 'gunk' in the tank.

You can probably buy bigger containers, but 5-litres does us fine.

Richard

[Reusch]

I had the same with mine you think where the bleeding hell as that come from.