Well, more like crossed wires or something.

I just got my mother-in-laws 2007 Fit Sport. It's pretty well taken care of, but when my wife went to drive it home, she tried to use the front windshield washers jets by pulling back on the driver's wheel right side stick. Nothing happened. Wipers moved, but you don't hear the pump motors for the jets.

So... I go out to the car and check it out. Brimming the fluid tank. Turning the wipers on and off, re-attempting to engage the washer jets by pulling on the stick. Nothing. So on a whim I checked the rear washer. Rotated the knob while looking at the rear window. I can hear the pumps running now, but nothing is coming out. The rear wiper is moving and seems to work in both the wash and regular settings.

However...

When I turn around and look at the front windshield, it's wet. Hmm. I turn the rear washer knob again and sure as sh*t the washer pumps and front jets activate. They only spray about 1/3 of the way up the glass, not reaching the top of the wiper range even with splash over. So I don't know if that is a limited power thing.

I'm not aware of any work done or jet replacements by the dealership, which is the only place my in-laws took the car for repairs.

• Are there wires that can be un-crossed somewhere?
• Could the limited pressure of the front jets be a clue of limited electrical power being sent to the pumps?
• Any other ideas as to what may be causing this and how it can be fixed?

If possible, when posting a possible resolution, can you please post some photos of the items/parts/wires that you are talking about. It will help me and other Honda novices find what you are talking about.

 

The systems for the front and rear washers are pretty much completely separate—you have two different pumps, two different hoses, etc. The only thing they have in common is the reservoir.

It sounds like someone hooked up the front washer hose to the rear washer pump. If I had to guess, I'd suspect that the front pump conked out at some point, and rather than replace it, they moved the hose from the rear pump to the front pump and made do. But that's just a guess.

Troubleshooting should be relatively straightforward. You can test to see if you're getting power at the appropriate pump when the switch is activated (using standard electrical testers). If no power is getting to the front pump, the problem obviously lies in the wire, switch, fuse, or something along those lines. If it has power but isn't pumping, the pump almost certainly needs replacement. If the hoses are swapped around, they also should be unswapped. It might be obvious that something else is also going on, too, like a broken fitting or whatever.

The front and back pumps are not the same; I assume the front one is a more powerful pump by design, since it needs to cover a larger area with more sprayers (rather than just kind of dribble a bit of fluid down).

The pumps are attached to the reservoir, on the bottom of the side closest to the fender. I wouldn't be surprised if you need to take the front fender panel off to get access. Places such as Bernardi parts (bernardibparts.com) have exploded diagrams available that are often helpful in figuring things like this out:



The front pump is #8 on the diagram, the rear one #9. The front pump unit is about $30 from them, which doesn't seem unreasonable.

 

So, DrewE is absolutely correct. My father-in-law, who actually is early onset alzheimer, just had a clear moment and remembered that 2 years ago the front pump died and a friend of his swapped out the pumps, but either did not or could not switch over the wires.

I guess I have to got get a new pump.

Sometimes it's just the simplest answer that resolves you problem.