2013 CX-5 - Is there a way to drain the windshield washer fluid?

H

hooked

:
2013 Mazda CX-5
I made the mistake of buying and using Rain-X fluid with some water repelling additive. I think this leaves an uneven coating on the windshield that makes the visibility worse.

Is there a drain plug to the reservoir to drain the stuff so I put regular fluid in? I dont even know where the tank is. I am trying to avoid sitting in the car and just holding the stalk for 10 minutes to spray out the fluid until it is done.
 
hooked said:
I made the mistake of buying and using Rain-X fluid with some water repelling additive. I think this leaves an uneven coating on the windshield that makes the visibility worse.

Is there a drain plug to the reservoir to drain the stuff so I put regular fluid in? I don*t even know where the tank is. I am trying to avoid sitting in the car and just holding the stalk for 10 minutes to spray out the fluid until it is done.
Click to expand...

You could bungee/tie the stalk to the wheel. But CAUTION: Don't know if the motor could handle continuous use like that.

Agree that Rain-X is worse than useless.
 
If you have a vacuum device like a Mitt vac you can use that. Or get a hose maybe a cheap skinny vac hose from an auto shop, put it in suck on it until it gets to the top and quickly take it out your mouth and it will drain (like siphoning gas or a fish tank)
 
Get a small diameter hose (air tubing from a fish tank works well) and shove it down into the washer reservoir as far as possible. Now shove the other end into a bottle of some kind (beer, wine, booze, water, whatever) so that the tip of the hose is at the bottom of the bottle. Now take your shop-vac (or any other type of vac) and create a vacuum inside the bottle by placing the vac hose at the top of the bottle. The liquid should get sucked into the bottle. If you do this right no liquid will reach the vac hose and it should all stay at the bottom of the bottle. If the bottle becomes too full empty it and continue.

This method works well for any type of liquid including brake fluid.
 
If you have any sort of hand pump spray bottle unscrew the pump part and stick the tube in washer bottle and hand pump the liquid out into a container.[or the ground if necessary]

This works as I have done this myself.
 
Take it out, dump it, put it back in. Or stick a garden hose in the inlet and flush it out.
 
Conrad 16.5 said:
Get a small diameter hose (air tubing from a fish tank works well) and shove it down into the washer reservoir as far as possible. Now shove the other end into a bottle of some kind (beer, wine, booze, water, whatever) so that the tip of the hose is at the bottom of the bottle. Now take your shop-vac (or any other type of vac) and create a vacuum inside the bottle by placing the vac hose at the top of the bottle. The liquid should get sucked into the bottle. If you do this right no liquid will reach the vac hose and it should all stay at the bottom of the bottle. If the bottle becomes too full empty it and continue.

This method works well for any type of liquid including brake fluid.
Click to expand...

This sounds intriguing. How do I orient the shopvac hose on top of the bottle? Do I point it perpendicular to the bottle opening or do I point it directly on top of the bottle opening?
 
1cx5 said:
If you have any sort of hand pump spray bottle unscrew the pump part and stick the tube in washer bottle and hand pump the liquid out into a container.[or the ground if necessary]

This works as I have done this myself.
Click to expand...


I have a hand pump sprayer but the tube is not long enough to get to the fluid tank. The fill tube is probably 6-8* long before it hits the tank and then the sprayer tube would have to longer to reach the bottom of the tank.
 
hooked said:
This sounds intriguing. How do I orient the shopvac hose on top of the bottle? Do I point it perpendicular to the bottle opening or do I point it directly on top of the bottle opening?
Click to expand...

Just place the vac hose at the top of the bottle and use your hand to make a 'seal' between the vac hose and the bottle opening. You'll see what I mean once you try it. It's easy and works quickly. Don't let the fluid level get too high in the bottle otherwise you'll suck it up with the vac.
 
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