I bought some windshield washer fluid, it only says it contains alcohol, can you just use alcohol instead?

Question

I bought some windshield washer fluid, it only says it contains alcohol, can you just use alcohol instead?

Answer 1

By it's self it is very flammable

Answer 2

NO NO NO, pure alcohol will ruin the rubber seals in the wiper pump, besides that you wouldnt want someone to throw out a cigarette and catch your car on fire.

Answer 3

Technically yes you could but the type of alcohol used is not the type you could drink. If you were to use strait alcohol it would ruin the wiper blades and would evaporate before you could use it effectively. Also, it would cost too much to use.

Answer 4

Alcohol is what gives the windshield solution its non-freeze qualities.

Answer 5

No you cant just use alcohol, the window washwer fluid that is sold in stores is a combination of alcohol, water, and solvent that disolves road film and grime - filling up the entire window washer tank with alcohol would cost more than buying a 1.00 bottle of window washer fluid.

Answer 6

i have used straight alcohol and no adverse effects tends to help in bad cold when the lines freeze up.The alcohol just lowers the freezepoint of the fluid.Would kinda be of be silly to spend the amount of money for rubbing alcohol to fill wiper box when wiper fluid is usually around .99 gallon though.

Answer 7

eh, I don't think alcohol is the ONLY ingredient in car windshield wiper fluid... sometimes ingredients on stuff like that are proprietary and they only list the things that could be potentially poisonous if swallowed.  

I know from experience that airplanes use alcohol for windshield wiper fluid... BUT it would be better for your car's paint to dillute it with water.

Answer 8

No straight alcohol will ruin the painted surface of the vehicle.

Answer 9

You can certainly try it, but the prepared fluid contains water and detergents as well as alcohol.  The stuff is cheap enough that trying to substitute is rather pointless.

Answer 10

Rubbing alcohol will leave a residue that streaks.  Wind-

shield washer fluid is methyl alcohol (rubbing is isopropyl)

and it takes longer to evaporate.  Can you?  Yes.  WW fluid

is definitely better.