Hello, I have had the Focus Mk2 for almost 2 years now, and I always have the same problem when winter comes. When it is below 2-3 degrees celsius for a few days my washer jets dont work anymore.. I hear the pump working but nothing comes out of washer jets(the front and also the back one)..In autumn I am always careful, I always use to the last drop of summer windscreen washer fluid and always use good quality -30 or -40  celsius windscreen washer fluid for winter, so it is impossible for the liquid to freeze at about 2-3 degrees celsius. I am able to use my washer jets after 30-40 mins of driving if it's really cold or only if my car sits in the sun.. I also have the heated windscreen, but it doesn't seem to make any difference if its on or off(i heard that the washer jets are also heated). Any ideas?

45 minutes ago, razvvva said:

so it is impossible for the liquid to freeze at about 2-3 degrees celsius

With an air temp of 2-3 degrees you can still get a frost on surfaces e.g. groundfrost will form with air temps above freezing

It's more likely that rain/condensation has frozen over the jet and also maybe diluted any liquid near the end allowing it to freeze. Not sure if the jets are heated but the few days we have had a frost here I've not had any trouble with the washers not working.

I start engine, switch on the front and rear  heated  screens and scrape  the side windows. When I get back in the front and rear are usually clear (less than 2 minutes usually if it's not a hard frost) I then squirt the front and rear washers no problems.

That's the problem, even with a temperature above 0 degrees i still have problems with this. I live in a pretty good area regarding frost, for example if outside is -2 degrees most of the time my windshield is not even frosted but my windshield water jets dont work even after a few minutes of my engine running at idle. I really have no idea what could cause this?!😓

Spray some anti freeze at the jets that's worked for me in the past. Not so easy at the rear though.

If you can easily disconnect the tubing that runs to the back of the jets you can check if they are definitely the problem by then running the pump and checking if the water is flowing freely out the tubes

I have the same year car and have never had an issue. On frosty icy mornings, I use a watering can of warm water to drench the front screen, and I always drizzle some directly onto the jets. Horror stories of windscreens cracking arise from 30/40 years ago, modern glass doesn't do that! Obviously when you state that it always work 30 minutes into your journey, the heat from the engine has simply penetrated to the jets defrosting them. In winter, I am always very generous with screenwash, and usually double whatever is recommended. If you buy a 5l container from Asda (the concentrate, not the pre made diluted rubbish!), it's very cheap...

re above - some have heated jets (maybe your has?), for the OP if you have a heated screen you should also have heated jets

if its not coming out don't keep trying it will damage the pump

and if you fill with high concentration antifreeze. don't forget to actually pump round the system front and rear (once its all mixed in) so the stuff in the pump and the hoses is the good stuff

Although this Focus has heated nozzles and a heated windscreen I use tepid/warm tap water on the windows and also splash some on the nozzles if I need a quick getaway. When I mix the minus 20 windscreen wash in a 5 litre tub I also put a cap full of mouthwash or some cheap aftershave as long as one of the ingredients is alcohol in with the mix. 

Does anybody ever had problems with limescale? I remember when I've got the car one of the washer jets  was clogged with what looked like limescale, I took a needle and cleaned both of them... Can limescale be inside the pump or somewhere on the route to the water jets and when it gets cold it hardens? I really don't know if this theory can be true, because when it's warm outside the water jets work without any problems, good presure, but when it's cold and I get them to work after some mins of driving, the pressure is low.

2 minutes ago, eddie eastwood said:

... I also put a cap full of ...or some cheap aftershave as long as one of the ingredients is alcohol in with the mix. 

mmm... your car must smell lovely! 🤣

I am experiencing the same thing with my 2019 ford fiesta. Did you ever figure out the cause and a solution?

 

Could you please be more specific? Are you using winter-suitable screenwash, the ordinary (summer) kind, or just plain water?

If, like the OP, you attempted to clear out the old summer screenwash to replace with a winter-suitable form, how did you do this? Did you just keep operating the spray until it stopped squirting and nothing more? If so then the pipe from the pump to the nozzle is still full of summer fluid; you'd need to operate the spray several times after putting in the replacement winter fluid to fully flush out all summer fluid. Additionally, did you only do this with the windscreen spray or did you do it with the rear also? If you neglected the rear then the whole of that pipe, leading right back into the shared pump will be full of old summer fluid. You need to empty out the tank, fill it back up with winter fluid, then flush all remaining summer fluid out of the pipes to get a complete exchange.

If you've done all of the above such that you're certain that the entire system is purely full of winter-suitable fluid, then it's time to consider other sources of a problem, like for instance the suggestion previously given of rain water collecting at the nozzles and freezing.