When I fill up my washer fluid reservoir in my 2001 Expedition, the fluid seems to leak out somewhere within hours. I looked under my truck and do not see any fluid anywhere, but it is going somewhere because the reservoir is empty several hours after I put in a whole gallon of washer fluid. Of course my wiper spray won't work because I can't keep the reservoir filled. Has anyone seen this happen before? Or can someone explain the layout of the washer fluid system to me? When I first fill the reservoir, I can spray once or twice, but shortly afterwards it is empty again. I haven't taken the truck into the dealer yet, and I am under my extended warranty so I don't know if it will be covered anyway. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

Only advice I could give is...if there's a leak and you want to fix it, you gotta FIND the leak. With a little effort you should be able to trace out where the tubing goes from the pump located at the bottom of the reservoir. Use water (cheaper) to find the leak (assuming you are in an area where it's above 32degF...unlike me!). Only other option is to bring it to a dealer, grab your ankles and hope it won't hurt!

 

I would start by checking the reservoir tank. Take the tank out of the vehicle and fill it with water and check the seams and any fittings, including around the pump. If you are losing water that fast, chances are it is upstream of the pump (i.e. somewhere on the tank itself. Not much if any water will get past the pump unless it is running. So if you have a leak in the tubing, it won't be real apparent unless you run the pump alot. I had this problem on my old Bronco and it turned out to be a seam in the tank had cracked. I found a fiberglass repair kit made by Permatex just for this problem.

Hope this helps,
Pbfoot

 

Taking the tank out is a pain, but may be the only way to go. Hint: One of the mounting bolts for the tank is squeezed between the tank and the battery. It was such a pain for me to access, I finally wound up pulling the battery out. My guess is that the gasket sealing the pump to the side of the tank is bad, or the pump has a crack in it's housing that is causing the leak.

 

The tank could be cracked, or the gaskets could be bad, or a hose could have come off, or started leaking. Start at the trank, and work your way backwards until you find the leak.

 

My 98 did the same EXACT thing.
Problem SOLVED !
Behind the passenger side kick panel is the hose for the fluid to go to the rear window.
There is a fitting that pops loose and all the fluid goes into the channel under the door jam on the passenger side where the wiring harness goes !
I fixed mine by sucking out the fluid with a shop vac and putting kitty litter in the channel and shop vac it out later.
Worked for me !

Jon

 

Jon - you were exactly right! The fitting had come loose and once it was re-attached, it worked fine again. Thank you very much!!

Kim

 

Kim,

Glad I could help!


Jon

 

I have this EXACT Same problem. I will attempt your solution.

 

Wow this "old" problem is still around, hope the fix works for you! Jon

 

Yeah, it showed up about a year ago and I never really started looking into it until last night.

It is on my 2002 Ford Expedition XLT.

 

I found the fitting, but it looks as if that I connect it back, it will still leak because it appears that the fixture coming in from the washer fluid reservoir side (inlet side) has a white plastic fitting that fits into a larger black coupling. On the outlet side (the side towards the rear window feeding), there does not appear to be a similar white coupling. Do any of you know if there is supposed to be one of those on the outlet side?