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      01-01-2017, 11:38 AM   #1
barnett
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E70 LCI Washer Bottle.. no small task

I thought I would write up the steps taken to strip the X5 enough to get to the washer bottle.

A mixture of descriptions here, I know they are obvious but for completeness ....
  • Fender = Wing
  • Fender Flare = Wheel Arch Trim
  • Rocker Panel = Side Skirt / Running Board
  • LH = Left Hand
  • RH = Right Hand

My car is a 2010 E70 LCI (XDrive 5.0i M-Sport).

If your BMW X5 / X6 has the washer jet power of a small ant with bronchitis then it seems there are three things you can do.
1.) Drive the car hanging out of the window whilst trying to spray water on the screen
2.) Take it into BMW and watch the face of the service manager change from medium happiness to "oh no, not an X* washer bottle"
3.) Take on the repair yourself.

I chose option 3, being handy with the tools and up for a challenge. I did the usual searches on Google and found small number of guides and couple of youtube clips for certain removal of components but for those who have/haven't looked here's a summary of what I found:
  • The screen washer bottle is located under the RH fender / Wing (UK car).
  • The poor washer jet performance is likely to be either a damaged washer bottle or blocked filter.
  • It's not uncommon to have a bad smell coming from this bottle
  • Headlamp washers may still be working fine but the screen ones not.
  • The washer bottle has three separate electrical pumps (each with it's own filter)
  • You *May* be able to get away with loosening the wing to get to the bottle.
  • Its a pretty time consuming job.

So the guide I followed suggested you can get away with doing the following:

a.) With the car jacked up, remove the front RH wheel
b.) Remove Front RH fender flare ** Held on with clips (blind rivets) on the underside of the flare and clipped through the fender.
c.) Remove the rocker panel (in the case of the M-Sport, side skirt - which means also removing the rear fender flare).
d.) Remove the four (if you intend to remove the fender) T30 Torx bolts from the inside of the Fender (between door opening and fender) - one of these goes through the washer bottle (see the attached photo).
e.) Remove two hex bolts (8mm socket) at the lower part of the fender, normally covered by the side skirt (rocker panel)).
f.) Remove the Torx bolt securing the filler neck to the top side of the engine bay, Remove the washer bottle filler neck (is locked into place and needs to rotated to unlock)
g.) Remove hoses and connectors from the side of bottle
h.) Remove the last (but very hard to get to Torx 30) bolt. Its located between the chassis of the car and front of the washer bottle (towards the filler neck). You get to it from underneath the car and reverse side of the bolt can be seen from the top of the car beyond the filler neck.

If you're lucky you will be able to get to this Torx bolt, remove the washer bottle, service / clean and re-install!! If not read on

Edit - Here is the challenge we had, the frame that sits on top of the chassis leg completely obscured the bolt securing the top of this bottle. it would appear to me that the bottle must have been fixed to the frame either loose to before the frame was secured into place. Note**When you loosen the frame you possibly effect the line of the bonnet / wing alignment**

Continue to strip enough of the car to get to the hidden Torx bolt:

i.) Remove the LH fender flare, bolts and clips (BMW call these blind rivets) on the underside plus clips through the fender.
j.) Remove the front bumper - (youtube)



k.) Remove the windshield trim (RH side), just pops out
l.) Remove the small hex screw and the top of the fender (was covered by the windshield trim)
m.) Remove the RH fender, If you have followed the instructions so far you will still need to remove the following:
  • The Torx 30 bolts along the top edge of the fender
  • One Torx 25 bolt at the front of the fender (under the lamp washer area)
  • One Torx 30 bolt that goes into the under side of the headlamp
  • One Torx 30 bolt on the inside of the front frame (to the left of the main radiator) ** follow the angle bracket from the inside of the bumper front of the chassis leg to locate this **
  • Don't forget to unplug the headlamp and washer pump feed (if you have headlamp washers) ** You should have already disconnected the side repeater
n.) You should be able to get to the plastic frame that is bolted to the top of the chassis leg, loosen several of the bolts to allow you to pull the bottle away from the chassis enough to undo the last tricky Torx bolt from underneath the washer bottle.

I have attached some photos of the washer bottle (clean) to highlight the fixing points and one to show how far we had to strip the car to do this job.

It's now time to clean all of the components. - Photos to follow

Reference Material:

Here is a link to realoem to the waterbottle:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=61_2146
Here is a link to realoem to the fender (wing):
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=41_2043

As they say in all good manuals, "installation is the reverse of removal" .. and three days of your life!


So what state was the bottle when we took it out..

It looked more like it had been used to store crude oil than water. Every filter was totally blocked. I'm going to assume another design floor here with the breather vent open on the top of the bottle inside a wheel arch...

We set about cleaning the filters in warm water and soap using an old toothbrush. We used steradent tablets to shift the black marks and dirt from the bottle but had to do this a number of time (I think 6 or 8 tablets at a time), the trick we found was to use a had full of pea gravel to help shift the muck. I took the pumps and clean them by hand and flushed clean water through them.

When we started to re-fit the washer bottle I used Autoglym vinyl-rubber-care on the filter seals.
Attached Images
     

Last edited by barnett; 01-03-2017 at 01:27 PM.. Reason: more update
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      01-02-2017, 05:53 PM   #2
jandref321
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That's a crazy amount of work! On my pre-LCI I just had to remove the plastic inside the wheel well and pull the fender out a little bit to reach the pumps. Was still a pain putting it back together, but better than pulling everything apart. I guess if you can do it, then pulling it apart makes it easier to see everything. Good job!
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      01-03-2017, 12:33 PM   #3
Flying Ace
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my water pressure is more like that between being coughed on by a mouse and being breathed on my an asthmatic through a straw.
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      01-03-2017, 01:32 PM   #4
barnett
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jandref321 View Post
That's a crazy amount of work! On my pre-LCI I just had to remove the plastic inside the wheel well and pull the fender out a little bit to reach the pumps. Was still a pain putting it back together, but better than pulling everything apart. I guess if you can do it, then pulling it apart makes it easier to see everything. Good job!
I agree, it's a crazy amount of work. I bet it's a 50/50 if the tricky bolt is obscured. If it is then I'd say if you can mostly clean the bottle in place best do that. As I say BMW must hate this job especially if it's on a fixed price.
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      01-03-2017, 01:35 PM   #5
barnett
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying Ace View Post
my water pressure is more like that between being coughed on by a mouse and being breathed on my an asthmatic through a straw.
Before I did the fix I would have been very jealous lung power of a mouse, now I have enough jet power to nearly blow the screen out! ... ;-)
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      12-24-2021, 10:04 AM   #6
smartshah
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Car:-

X5 LCI 40D M Sport RHD UK Model

I done this job the other day. It actually took me less than 3 hours and i was taking my time. I had around 3 cups of coffee.

Problem:-
Front Windscreen Squirters, were struggling.
Headlight squirters not working

Causes:-
Mainly blocked filters on the pump inside the Washer Fluid bottle.
Worse case scenario pump failed. There is a littler propeller and it breaks.

Tools Needed

- Torx Socket Set, preferably long torx bits
- Socket Set
- Jack and Jack stand
- Wheel Lug Socket 17mm and Locking wheel nut Remover
- Torque Wrench
- Cordless Drill, or a Small Punch, to pop the blind Rivets out of the Wheel Arch Trim
- Phillips Screw Driver
- Trim Removal Tools, Plastic is preferred.
- Plastic Rivet tool - £20 off Ebay. Worked like it should

Parts Needed:-

- 2 small pumps off breaker yard with 3 months warranty. Back and front windscreen washer pumps £10 each
- 1 Large Pump for the Headlight washing system £15
- 2 Filters for the small pumps from BMW new £4 each
- Large filter for the big pump £6 from BMW new
- 10 Blind rivets to go on the wheel arch trim £7 from BMW in total
- Spare Kicker Panel rivets, large ones go under the car. It has 8, i got 5 incase i break some. £4 in total from BMW
- 5 spare Rivets, that fix the kicker panel under the door £4 in total.
- 5 spare 8mm nuts, which hold the inner arch plastic liner, along with 5 spare square nuts £6 from BMW
- 2 spare large square nuts, these are located under the side of the fender, you need to open the driver door to remove these
- 5 Litr screenwash concentrate from BMW £24. You mix 50 50. These dont contain antifreeze or silicone which clogs the filters.
Time to do approx 1 to 3 hours. Good to have a helping hand.

This is not difficult at all.

Removing:-

Jack car
Remove front driver side wheel
Pop the blind rivets using a drill or the punch from outer wheel arch trim, and pull the trim off, from one end. I started the side closest to the bumper
Remove the fasteners and clips from the inner wheel arch trim, from the left side. You dont need to do the bumper side at all.
Open the door, there will be 3 Torx bolts. 2 you will see clearly. 3rd one you have to adjust the opening of the door. This one holds the washer bottle in. They are different lengths so remember that
There are a few more, under the car, there is 2 plastic nuts too one under the car and one infront of you
Open the car door, drivers, and the rear driver side door.
Remove the clips from underneath the skirt trim. You need normal pliers, or long nose pliers, some will break
Pull the skirt starting from the front wheel arch. But dont put too much pulling it from underneath. You need to put force on the top, as there are clips holding it in under the doors. You dont need to remove all of it, just enough to give you space to pull the fender back.
Undo the torx on the top part of the fender. You have to open the bonnet.
Pull the windscreen trim back or unclip it using a trim tool. There will be a phililps screw.
Undo the 2 bolts under the wing, 8mm.
Now the washer bottle will be free, and you can see the motors etc.
Unclip the hoses. Unclip the plug connectors. Pull the motors out. And then you will see that the motors fit inside the filters. Pull the filters out, pry them with a flat screw driver.
Inspect the filters. There will be some sludgy crap on them. Mine were covered in sludge. You can clean them, i never bothered. In my case i did not need new motors just the filters. Motors were fine.
Get some hot soapy water, and flush the sludge out of the water bottle. I could see there was some nasty guey stuff at the bottom of the bottle. So i stuck a pressure washer from the top, and flushed it out.
The washer lines will not be blocked as the filters are doing their job.
Replace filters/motors which ever applies to you.
Reinstall in reverse order.

Blind rivets are the last thing you put back on after the wheel trim.

Good luck..i think it all cost me around £60 with tools. The most expensive bit was the washer fluid. I got a quote from a specialist, £200 plus parts. So i would say £300. The cheapest quote i got was £180 plus any additional bits. As the book time is 4 hours.

I reckon if i was to do this again, it would take around under an hour
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      06-15-2023, 01:43 PM   #7
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Crap, my bottle is leaking it had some repair done by the former owner, a couple of Monti’s a Go.
I called the garage what they did to repair it, but the don’t keep working orders.

So next week I will have a look whats cousing the leaking, I hope your explanation will help me to fix it.
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