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I needed to drain smelly windscreen washer fluid from my C3 Picasso. I have a Briggs and Stratton oil extraction vacuum pump which is intended for easy draining of sump oil from my lawnmower. (Other brands are available). I tried to use the pump to extract washer fluid by pushing the pipe into the washer reservoir. The reservoir is a complicated shape and inserting the pipe was like intubating a comatose swan, I could not get the pipe around the bends. I noticed that there is a connector clipped to the left hand side of the bonnet. I pulled the rubber tubing off the connector, and found that the rubber tube was an air tight fit inside the plastic tube of the extractor pump. It took a few minutes to drain the tank. I did operate the washer briefly once or twice, which did speed things up, but using the car washer to drain the tank is definitely not a good idea. Firstly on the C3 operating the washer pump also runs the wipers. Secondly continuous use would very likely overheat the pump. It took only a few minutes to drain the reservoir this way, and this method avoids removing the front wheel and wheel arch liner. The following is how I attempted to sterilise the system. Copy this action at your own risk. As for dealing with the smell. I pumped out the smelly fluid. Then flushed a litre or so of fresh water through. The smell is caused by bacteria, so the system needs to be sterilised to avoid re infection. I added a dilute bleach solution and left it for half an hour or so before flushing again with fresh water. After final draining, I replaced the washer fluid. The smell was gone, and the windscreen seems less smeary. I was concerned because some online sources suggest that these water born bacteria can cause respiratory infection including legionnaires disease. I am unsure how the use of bleach might affect the rubber tubing, but could not think of a suitable alternative which would not attack the rubber. However I am hoping that the brief contact will not cause long term damage. I hope this post is helpful to someone:-)

A week ago I started to get a curry like smell from my heater when blowing out hot. This smell over the course of the week turned to a burning like smell. I got a sparky to come check out the motor and other electrical that deal with the heater but to no joy that everything was running fine. Also in that week I took it to a garage where they also checked for the same thing and found nothing but then looked for holes leading from the engine into the car (not sure exactly what they did) and they found nothing wrong there. Now today the smell is getting worse and also the engine management light came on and the car is sluggish and wont accelerate past 50 most of the time unless am going downhill. Any ideas would be appreciated. Citroen xsara, 52 plate 2.0 HDi