New owner

Yes that is the filler in the trunk. There is a pump there that operates on a sequence of its own to fill the tank up front. You may have to use a garden hose to keep the windshield wet while repeatedly running the washer sequence to get it to pump. I don't remember the sequence although I have read about it.

My US 840 has a regular cap up front and no tank in the back.

Thinking again--Look under the carpet and see if there is a tank in the spare tire well. I think that some versions with the headlight washers have two tanks in the back.

To the best of my knowledge, the washer fluid opening by the trunk is only for the headlamp washer system. If installed, you will see two small circles in front of each headlamp, and a washer fluid tank located under the black plastic dome under the spare tire in the trunk.

Your windshield washer fluid resevoir should be located under the hood, and there should be two of them. The larger one is for the regular washer fluid, and the smaller for the intensive fluid.

My best guess is that your cap is simply stuck.

Thanks for the replies.

Under the hood are 2 tanks, the larger one for the regular washer fluid has no cap on it so it seems impossible to fill it from there. Just inside the trunk in the rear sill is a filler inlet for water which connects to a large tank under the spare wheel. I have filled this tank and will try later to pump the water through to the tank under the hood as suggested.

Maybe on your model the regular windscreen and intensive windscreen washer fluid containers are joined into one.

Is there a cap for the smaller of the two adjacent containers? If so, try filling this one and see if they both fill up.

The rear container is for the headlamp washers and should not affect the windscreen system.

Let us know how it works out.

Congrats on the purchase.

We had this one before ..

I have 1997 UK 840Ci Sport Auto. It has the filler cap in the rear bumper. Use this - it will fill screen and headlights systems. There are 2 tanks under the bonnet - 1 is sealed (is filled via the rear bumper) the other is for intensive screen cleaning fluid, which you can add in yourslef directly via the opening at the top of this tank.

Hope this helps.

By The way if you hjaven't seen it already - check out E31 sectioon on Roadfly - a VERY informed and active 8 series webboard.

http://bimmer.roadfly.org/bmw/forums/e31/

Cheers,

Ian.

PS Email me with any other questions - Happy To Help.
urbun@hotmail.com

Ian

Thanks for the roadfly.org tip, it is a useful site. Having searched the forums it is apparent that a sensor in the sealed tank in the enginer compartment detects low fluid levels and sends a signal to the pump in the tank under the spare wheel. Usually this occurs when switching on the ignition. It is apparent that mine is not working and there are a number of possibilities:

1. the sensor is not working or not installed in the correct position, it seems to be quite sensitive to being in exactly the right position
2. the pump in the tank under the spare wheel has failed
3. the fuse for this pump has failed.

Now I need to track down which has caused my problem.

Cheers

After some investigation I find that water is pumped from the trunk tank to the main tank under the hood. However, there is a leak here which seems to be either from the pump or the tube connected to the pump.

Shouldn't be too difficult to fix.

On my vehicle, when filling the headlamp washer tank, once the tank is full, excess fluid will "leak" out from under the spare tire area. This is to prevent the tank from overflowing and is intentional.

Depending upon where the leak is, it may not be a leak, but a preventative excess drain.

Rey

It is apparent that there were a number of different setups for the windscreen and headlamp washer systems depending on year of manufacture and the market. My car was built for the Hong Kong market which would be essentially the same as the British market.

In this configuration, the tank in the boot supplies water to the larger of the 2 tanks under the hood. This tank under the hood provides water to clean both the windscreen and the headlamps.

The leak I have is not in the trunk, it is under the hood from the larger of the 2 tanks there. This tank is not overflowing as it only gets to half full before the quantity of water leaking out from the pump which supplies the windscreen washer jets exceeds the inflow from the trunk tank. This leak also reduces the pressure of water supplied to the jets.

I intend to deal with it this weekend.

Cheers

Guys, my 840 95 Australian spec has a twin tank under hood. One is itensive fliud the other is water. The water bottle has an alumnium (aluminum for US readers) heat shield that is fixed to four plastic plugs that are heat shrinked into the plastic tank. The plugs work loose and leak water down between the shield and wall of the tank so it is nearly impossible to see the water path.
The pumps also have a tendency to leak through the case and or main shaft seal. You can prise them apart but easier to fit a used pump from another series for a fraction of the cost.

The plasic tank is better repaired (plastic welding at bumper bar rebuilders) tha replaced as new ones do the same thing. Poor design to start with
Theo