Normal antifreeze – yes! Experiment with “Drive”

In fact, for over 20 years Russians have not been given normal windshield washer fluid through the fault of officials.

It seems to be the most difficult automotive fluid for our production. We can do almost everything else, but we shrug with rings: we can’t, they say … Once, in the last century, they could, but now they can’t. Unless in deep underground, away from TV cameras.

People sitting in high-rise offices shrug their shoulders in surprise: they say everything is fine! Washing machine for sale – the sea: freezing point, color and smell – to choose from!

Well, once again we recall the essence of the problem:

• In fact, all washing machines sold officially in Russia come from one barrel of isopropyl alcohol.
• Everybody isopropyl washers lose their fluidity sharply in the cold, which is why they barely squeeze through the windshield washers and sometimes don’t reach the windshield.
• The best winter washer in the world – methanol: It is used in northern countries like Canada and USA, obsessed with ecology. But we have banned it.
• Produce washing machine with food alcohol – ethanol – it is possible, but very unprofitable: excise duties are to blame! The price will be crazy. Although all of Europe rides on it.
• The chief health doctor at the time, Gennady Onishchenko, who banned methanolic liquids, never said they were dangerous to human health!

The last point needs clarification. The mess with the washing machines counts right from the decision of the Chief State Sanitary Doctor No. 4 of May 23, 2000. It said the following:

“The use of methanol-based windshield washer fluids for their intended purpose has no harmful effect on human health, which is confirmed by years of practice of its use abroad and the absence of poisoning in our country.”

But the same document indicates the reasons for the ban on methanol scrubbers: “the low level of cultural and hygiene education of part of the population.”

Millions of drivers have suffered because of this, forced to drive in winter with windshield washers that don’t actually work – which, by the way, is prohibited by law.

They have only one way out – through the hook or through a crook to get a banned methanol-based washing machine and use it only in cold weather.

Experiment

For those who believe only their own eyes, we dedicate one more experiment, which everyone can repeat if he wants.

After choosing one representative from a variety of windshield washer fluids, each based on isopropyl, ethanol and methanol, we cooled them to -20 ºC and then alternately poured them into the tank of the Largus editorial.

So, the easiest way to visually compare the nature of the spray jets at the exit of the nozzles.

Viscosity of windshield washer fluids on different bases

* For reference – approximately: the kinematic viscosity of water at +20 ºC is 1.00 cSt, at 0 ºC – 1.79 cSt.

In the cold, methyl detergent is nearly three times better than ethyl and five times the allowable isopropyl!

It is almost impossible to buy a household washing machine based on edible ethyl alcohol, because they are practically not produced: they are too expensive. Therefore, the actual spread between a forbidden good washing machine and an allowed bad washing machine is fivefold!

This can be clearly seen in the photo: the spread in the length of the jets at the outlet of the nozzles is clear. In severe frosts, the isopropyl ring gets on the glass only in those machines where the liquid comes directly to the wiper blades through several nozzles mounted on the brush belt itself.

But on the vast majority of cars, the washers are mounted on the hood or on a panel that bridges the gap between the hood and the windshield. Such a scheme in the cold when using an isopropyl ring will not work.

And further. Permissible isopropyl alcohol is not only unsuitable for washing, but also not cheap and the most scarce.

How to be?

An official bureaucrat is sure to start an old song about the toxicity of methanol. But this is nonsense: methanol becomes a poison in the stomach. No need to drink garbage – that’s the whole recipe.

By the way, there is a simple solution that allows you to solve the problem – methyl alcohol for washing machines can be denatured by adding some kind of “emetic” to it.

There’s another argument: if the methyl scrubber was dangerous to humans, no one in Canada would have heard of it. However, the local Green Party is silent …

Yes, and in Russia millions of motorists have used methyl liquids bought on the side of the road all these years. There is no medical data on damage to the body or diseases caused by washing.

But there are dozens of stories of headaches, tears in the eyes and loss of concentration due to the harsh stench of legal isopropyl fluids. The strong smell of isopropyl cannot be removed by any fragrance and methanol does not actually smell.

And no one has proven that the number of citizens affected by drinking methanol compounds exceeds the number of accidents caused by poor visibility due to a dirty windshield. So why put the lives of millions of drivers and their passengers at risk?

Once again we ask the authorities to turn their faces towards normal drivers who need methylated fluid for the windshield washer reservoir, and not as an alcoholic drink.