Windshield Wiper Nozzle Not Working on Your Car Truck or SUV

Okay, friends. So let's say you hop inside your vehicle, you push your little washer fluid button. And for some reason, nothing comes out of those washer nozzles and we need to figure out why. I want to show you a couple of things to look for. Let's check it out.

So we tried spraying our windshield, nothing came out of our washer nozzles, but we did hear the washer fluid pump running. So we need to figure out what's going on. Let's get under the hood. So one of the first things you want to do is make sure you actually have washer fluid in your tank. Take a peek, level looks like it's a little low. Let's add some. Okay, so now going with the assumption that we know that we have washer fluid in there, whether you just filled some or it was already full, you tested it. still doesn't work. Boo, right? What we need to do is we need to figure out where the washer fluid hose is, which in this turn is actually right up here on the side of the hood. I would disconnect it, just like that, set it off to the side so it's kind of aiming off to the side and it's not going to spray at anybody.

Next what I would like to do is run the washer pump again and just see if fluid comes out of that hose. If it comes out of the hose, we know that the issue is further up along the hood. So that tells me that fluid's coming out of here, and there isn't an issue between right here and the pump itself. Okay? If for some reason we didn't have any fluid coming out of here, that would tell me that either we have a kink, a break or maybe it's just frozen in there and it's not letting fluid go from the pump up to the hose. Since we had fluid coming out of the hose, that tells me that the issue must be further along.

Okay, so now we're just going to take an air nozzle and I'm going to put it on to this little nub. And then I'm going to try to apply air and see if there's anything caught in between where I'm squirting and the nozzles themselves. Okay, so those are definitely nice and cleared out whether they had maybe a little bit of ice inside the line that could have blocked it up. We're pushing November here, we're going into December, so everything's getting a little colder. And if you're running washer fluid that isn't rated to go into, you know, the negatives or whatnot, then it could freeze up in the lines. And that's a probable cause. You could also get a little bit of dirt, or you could have a kink in the line. So now we're pretty sure that I've got fluid coming out of there, you saw it. I added air, it shot fluid out, we should be good to go.

Just in case for some reason washer fluid didn't come out of either one, or neither of the washer fluid nozzles that's on the other side of the hood there, you're going to want to get right underneath this. And that's where the hose is going to run, and that's where we're going to go now. Okay, so after we pull this back, we can take a look. See if we have any hoses that came disconnected, maybe at this joint here, this one's loose. That one's not even connected to the washer nozzle. So, you know, if you had one washer nozzle that was working and one that was not, this could be a potential issue. Maybe it just came off the nozzle. So I removed the washer nozzle from the outside of the hood just to show you that this is where it's supposed to connect into just like that. It became disconnected, obviously, no fluid's going to be able to make its way to here. All right, let's connect this back in here, here we go. Let's test it. Okay, let's give these a try. All right.

So now let's talk about if your washer fluid pump doesn't want to work. Just a couple of things to look for, and maybe we can get it running. Okay, so we just need to get inside the vehicle. Hook up this to the known ground, in we go. Right down on the driver side kick panel, you're going to see this little panel. Pull on this tab and give it a tug, and this right here is going to be our treasure map. This is going to tell us where to look, okay? We have our fuses. I can see right on the very top WASHER FLUID, which is what I'm looking for. It's a 20 amp, so that leads us into here. And this is where we're going to check for our fuses.

Okay, so this 20 amp fuse right up along the top right there, that's the one that we're going to check with our test light. So what you want to do is you want to make sure that you have your key power in the ON position, the vehicle does not have to be running, but the key has to be in the ON position. Take your test light and connect it to a known ground, and then we're going to check for power. Got my little tool here, this should light up once it realizes that it's getting power. Test one side, I can see that it's glowing. I'll test the other side, it's also glowing. If for some reason you tested your fuse, and one side made a glow and the other side didn't, more than likely you would have a blown fuse.

Okay, now that we know we have power at the fuse, let's get underneath the vehicle and check for power at the washer pump. Okay, so we turned our wheel. That gives us plenty of room to have access to where our washer fluid pump's going to be and the connector. But what we want to do is, we want to get this plastic out of the way. There's going to be a few mounting bolts, you've got one here, supposed to be here, here, there's one hiding under there, believe it or not, and there's another one right here. We'll remove all those and we'll get this plastic out of the way. All right, let's get this plastic out of the way. Awesome.

Okay, so we're just gonna come right over here, this is the wiring for the washer pump, lift up on that. This particular wiring, what you're going to notice is that it has constant power going to the pump. Okay? And right here, this is the other wire, it doesn't have anything going to it. Once we push on that button up top to run the washer pump, it should apply ground and that's when the pump should run. If you tested for power on this center prong and you did not have power, but you did have power at the fuse on both legs, that would mean that you have an issue with the wiring in between the fuse and here. If you do have power here, and you have ground when you push that button, and you have this connected and for some reason, the pump does not work, that means you need a brand new washer pump. Otherwise, you should be good to go.

So now that we know that we have power and ground going to the pump, let's get our safety glasses on. I'm going to remove this hose, a little bit of fluid's going to come out. But I want to give this pump a test. All right, go ahead and hit it. Whoa, yup. Pump works.

Okay, so we talked about a couple different things that we wanted to diagnose. We went with the original way where we could hear the pump but nothing was coming out of those nozzles. We checked for kinks, we checked to see if any hoses were disconnected. We double-checked all that, we blew out the line. It worked fine afterward. Maybe something was frozen in there, could've had a little bit of dirt, who knows? Then we went with the assumption that for some reason that pump just didn't want to work, right? We pushed the button there's nothing going on. So what we did is we checked the fuse, check both prongs of that, make sure you have power on both sides. If you don't, replace the fuse, try again, hopefully it works for you. If you did have power there, you'd want to follow that line, lead down to the motor or to the pump, and you want to check for power and ground down there. If you don't have one of those, you need to of course, continue your diagnosis in that direction. Assuming you do have both of those, power and ground when that button is pushed, you need a pump. Easy peasy.