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I did something very stupid tonight.
I was filling up the screen wash in my car as my wife and daughter both arrived home and both asked if I could top up theirs as well.
It was then I noticed that the nearly empty large bottle of concentrated screen wash was actually the ready to use watered down stuff, so not having enough to fill all three, I had to water it down.
My wife currently has a Mitsubishi Colt, and her previous three cars both had the screen wash filler at the RHS at the front of engine bay.
So by habit, I lift the flip up cap off in that area and pour in an initial shot of the mixture and add water to see how much it needs. Fortunately it didn't take too much, because whilst putting the cap back on I noticed the washer tank near the bulkhead at the rear LHS.
So I'd topped up the bloody radiater header tank with diluted screenwash!

I syphoned out as much as I could, so there ain't too much left in.
Now I have the obvious question is -
Is this going to be a problem on an engine with an alloy head?
Or am I worrying for nothing?

1 blame her

2 refer to rule one

3 think you should be ok....

Worry for nothing i'd say. Ye might get a few strange smells from time to time, but nowt to worry about. The plastic bottle is an expansion tank to catch super heated coolant. It will eventually cycle round the engine, but as long as you haven't over done the screen wash, it'll be fine.

Thanks folks, that's what I assumed, but you just made me feel better.
The wife loves that bloody car, so really don't want to F*** it up!

don't worry about it howard it won't do any harm. i get it all the time. one customer actually thaught she'd top her oil up and poored it in there.

Cheers Ian!

It's a lot easier being a complete twat, if you know you haven't damaged anything!

Oh dear - Howard's given his carers the slip again .....


At least it wasn't the brake reservoir he chose to top up ....

Sorry Andy, but I've always had the capacity to be completely stupid.
I was probably even better at it when I was younger!
I now do it without thinking, I often used to seriously consider it before doing it in the past!


I will always remember climbing an almost vertical quarry face with a mate when I was about twelve, thought about it for a while then we decided let's do it.
Got right to the top and there was a curved bit of bank and gravel, with no real hand holds, thought rather differently when I got here.
Then again I survived that one.

Anybody else done anything really stupid, with or without thinking?

It's those stupid things that you do twice that are most worrying ...





... like getting married!

You still got that big drum of mixed fuel at the back of your place Sam...?

makes screenwash in the coolant quite tame..

It's our age Howard.
I filled my diesel car up with unleaded a few months ago.
It cost me the price of the petrol, plus £100 to get it drained out and then the cost of the diesel to fill it up again.
Then nearly did the same thing a couple of weeks back.
Had the unleaded nozzle in the tank before I realised what was happening.
It is the first diesel car i've had, and the wifes is petrol(which I still have to fill up).
But to nearly do it a second time is worrying.


I don't worry anymore if it's an age thing it can only get worse.

Falken wrote:
It's our age Howard.
I filled my diesel car up with unleaded a few months ago.
It cost me the price of the petrol, plus £100 to get it drained out and then the cost of the diesel to fill it up again.
Then nearly did the same thing a couple of weeks back.
Had the unleaded nozzle in the tank before I realised what was happening.
It is the first diesel car i've had, and the wifes is petrol(which I still have to fill up).
But to nearly do it a second time is worrying.


I don't worry anymore if it's an age thing it can only get worse.

Yeh, another 5 or 10 years Ken and you could be as bad as me.
I stopped counting years ago but have got another one of those bloody birthdays coming up in just over a month!
Give you a clue, they had the worst winter last century the year I was born.
Then again I've just spent nearly five hours snow shifting and it's now snowing like mad again. **** **** ****

Tell her to get a sensible car