Windshield Washer Fluid for New Sprinter

Boater

New member
Do we as MB drivers need to drink BEVO approved beverages to ensure optimum performance from our vehicles?
 

Russ61

Member
I'm out (ie empty reservoir) and need to add. I assumed it would be a generic product....silly me. After reading countless threads and comments across the internet, I finally looked up the MSDS (material safety data sheets) for both the Summerfit and Winterfit MB windshield washer fluids here: Summerfit and Winterfit

Basically, Summerfit uses sodium laurel sulfates and organic sulfonates....both are detergent/surfactants I believe. Note that the concentrations are 10-40% (combined max) with a pH of 6.5 (very mildly acidic) and blue color. Winterfit conversely consists of ethanol, isopropyl alcohol, and butanol....all solvents and having a mildly basic pH of 7.7. BOTH are blue liquids.

Earlier I thought Winterfit REPLACED Summerfit. Now I'm guessing that it is ADDED to Summerfit, principally as a de-icer. MB dealerships are horribly deficient in understanding their $$$ product.

I've read others attest to the blue dye staining tanks/lines...apparently when the spin was on the colorless form called Summerwash. I've also read others attest to using distilled water.....makes some sense if your water source is "hard", ie high in mineral content, but otherwise I'd deem unnecessary.

I think I'll stick to my original plan and buy a less expensive generic brand. Here in the Pacific Northwest you can go thru a fair amount of washer fluid.
 
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lindenengineering

Well-known member
Do we as MB drivers need to drink BEVO approved beverages to ensure optimum performance from our vehicles?
Well I can see only the best at your friendly MB parts counter by vending machine perhaps & over chilled for Yankee customers vistin' the UK. The likes of Twaites Bevo Bitter--sounds good that--drawn from the hand pump!

How's' about a Boddies Bevo Bevvie from Warrington --lovely smooth head right frum't the can lad! Complete with MB illuminated widget!--Got some of that in the fridge right now !

Or of course being a West Countryman whatta about a Bulmers Bevo Strongbow! MB approved complete with arrows!:thumbup: Found only in select MB dealerships south of the M4 and Zummerzet!
OOwaqh ah-- I dugh like thaat me dears!

Cheers as always thinking of scrump!:rolleyes:
Dennis
 

Camosun

Member
I have been using generic windshield washer fluids in my 2012 without any negative consequences since new. When the dealer tops up the system he does not charge for it so I assume he is using a generic product rather than MB branded fluid. Living in Vancouver with windshield washers, rear window washers and headlamp washers my Sprinter goes through the stuff like it should be on some kind of twelve step program.
 

Ivessm

2014 Long/Tall BLACK Pass 4Cyl/7sp
Guys!!!

How the heck do we spend 3 full pages on windshield washer solvent :bash: :bash: :bash: ?????

Where has our sanity gone? :thinking: :thinking: ?????????

This is beginning to take on the life of an oil thread! :idunno: :bash: :idunno: :bash: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What have we done???

stew
 

lindenengineering

Well-known member
Stew
Well of course you're right!
As a transplanted Brit we cannot help but make fun of it all!
Hence the zany posts with a distinctive Brit beer flavour.

For what its worth I just buy cases of the supermarket blue stuff and dispense it free to customers.
Sprinter seems to have no problem with it!
Maybe because its free!
Dennis
 

Ivessm

2014 Long/Tall BLACK Pass 4Cyl/7sp
Dennis,

I wonder if the blue windshield washer solvent might be triggering some of the limp-home-mode problems that crop up now-and-then??? Maybe we have the answer here. I'll bet no one else has ever considered this. :thinking::idunno::bash::crazy::thinking:

I prefer the orange stuff. :shhh::shhh::shhh: I guess I'm doomed for a future of LHM problems. Knock on wood...:bash:

stew
 

christopherowen

New member
It's all very well ensuring you use only BEVO approved & listed fluids . However many people make the mistake of using tap water to dilute & fill the washer bottle .

If you read the BEVO small print you will find that the approved water is stocked by Mercedes .
High quality Deli's & the more expensive restaurants sell the same water for less the MB .

MB actually specify spring water from Black Forest streams above 2,600 ft & only if it is fed by melt water from that years snow fall .

I personally have used all season screen wash fluids of all makes on glass & plastic without any problems to pumps , tubing , jets , lights or wipers
Love the bit about spring water from the Black forest streams . . . . . Hilarious!!
 

RVBarry

2023 AWD 170 DIY CamperVan
Funny... the French love sparkling water from our ground sources in NA... talk abooot a waste of carbon output... fill a ship with Evian in Europe... fill the same ship for the round trip with Crystal Pure in a Great Lakes port... :bash:
And Perrier is carbonated at the bottling plant
 

sailquik

Well-known member
I've always used Rain-X and I tried it in the 2019 VS30 519/3500 USA and it seems to work at least as good as
what was in the washer fluid reservoir factory fill in Charleston.
Willing to bet that the Mercedes Benz Sprinter dealers DO NOT use the BEVO Approved fluid in the USA.
Roger
 

4wheeldog

2018 144" Tall Revel
Dingo
We in the Rocky Mountain area can rely on our spring water as a symbol of purity AND it goes into Coors Beer, brewed right here in Golden, Colorado just down the road from my shop.

You over there just need to go up stream of that famous Bass Brewery (now owned by Coors) on the River Trent at Burton for some of the worlds finest water made of course into their ales; the wort still in existence since the 1770's.

I always have to put the Germans in their place about their much vaulted krausening methods and British reals! Can't help it!:thumbup:
Dennis
Do you know how Coors beer is like making love in a row boat?
(You will have to find the answer elsewhere.)
 

Roamers

2020 4X4 170 Crew
I recall a Coors mystique on the east coast 50 years ago because it had to be transported in a refrigerated truck to keep it from going bad.
 

irvingj

2015 RT SS Agile (3.0L)
"... it had to be transported in a refrigerated truck..." Yes, true. And before that, it wasn't even available outside the western states, so NH did without....

Until, that is, I made a trip back here from CA in late December of 1974 in my '72 Blazer, with my future wife. Rear seat was removed and a futon put in, several quilts, sleeping bags, food, stock 22-gallon fuel tank replaced with a 38-gallon monster from Hickey Enterprises, and four cases of Coors, stacked two on each side in the back corners next to the tailgate. Yep, almost like my TDI Wagon (NOT), about 500 miles on a tankful of gas. Literally stopped for fuel six times from CA to NH, through all kinds of nasty weather. (Do I hear Janis in the background?)

Sold those cases of Coors to a bar proprietor friend when I got back to NH; that beer paid for all the fuel for that trip! Oh, the adventures with that Blazer, when I was young & foolish....

But, as Dennis is quick to point out, European beer is a tad different; after my first trip to Northern Europe in November of 1968 (talk about lousy weather!!), I was forever spoiled. American beer tasted like flavored water after that....

Sorry, trip down memory lane over.... :)
 

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