windshield washer fluid - hazardous?

If I am not mistaken the skull and cross bones are because most of the cheap anti-freeze windshield washer fluid contains methyl alchol. If injested can cause blindness and othe digestive problems.

 

Good question! I do think anti-freeze is poisonous as I know that dogs can die if they drink it and that it’s sweet so that they are tempted to do so. I don’t know how much they need to drink though.

I don’t think it’s dangerous to touch (you probably have to consume a gallon to feel the effects) and I don’t think it’s dangerous for your car paint.

I also suspect that you must use it as normal water will freeze. I would be interested in an environmentally sounder alternative that worked. I have never seen one.

 

If it uses Methanol, yes it's very toxic, and also dangerous to pets and wild-life.

There are fluids available that use other anti-freeze components that are much less hazardous.

 

OK, gotta go double check mine....

 

As much as I think heated wiper fluid is a nice touch, it will most certainly not be heated when the vehicle is off, and that means that fluid in the lines or pump can still freeze making a mess of the washer system. That means that we will have some form of alcohol in washer fluid for a long time to come.

I guess I'm not as concerned as many, however in our lives we are surrounded by and use poisonous items every day. I'm sure you can find less poisonous wiper fluid, however I'm sure it will cost a lot more and it might not be as effective. If you use your washers a lot that means you will be paying a lot more, too. Vehicles are filled with poisonous or harmful fluids. All coolants are poisonous. I wouldn't be out there drinking motor oil, or gasoline. I don't think that transmission fluid is much better either. And I'm inclined that knawing on the plastics of the engine compartment aren't going to be good for you either.

I think it would be better to purchase garden variety washer fluid use it as directed and place the partially used container in a place where children or pets won't get to it. In addition, many brands of washer fluid use child resistant caps.

As a suggestion, during the summer you can dilute down your washer fluid with water. That can be helpful as sometimes it is quite soapy, more so than you actually need. However in the winter you will want to go back to a full strength solution.

 

MeOH is pretty quick to evaporate, really.

blindness only happens if ingested orally. i get strong whiffs of that stuff all the time in lab. it's not pleasant, but does not pose a danger to your vision.

i believe antifreeze contains ethylene glycol, which is the poisonous component. i should know what it does, but i'm a pharmacologist in training, not a toxicologist in training.

 

I am a psych RN. I've known several patients who tried to kill themselves drinking anitfreeze (and one who succeeded). One of the MD's said that the main reason one of our patient's attempts had been unsuccessful was because the patient had consumed a large amount of alcohol around the same time he decided to drink the antifreeze. Had he been sober at the time, the patient probably would have died.

 

I know 303 makes washer fluid replacement tablets. I don't know about their anti-freeze properties.

I also know there are recipies out there for rolling your own using Isopropyl Alchohol and Detergent.

I'm not sure about specific generally available cold-climate low-temperature prepackaged ones, but I'm curious now, I'll start looking

 

That's correct - Antifreeze and antifreeze washer fluid are 2 different things. The methanol is what makes the washer fluid "antifreeze" because it has a freezing point of -98 C( -144F) The washer fluid doesn't have any actual car antifreeze in it (ethylene glycol or propylene glycol). I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just don't let anyone or anything drink it. It has a very low vapor pressure, and evaporates quickly. Methanol is just a methylene group away from ethanol and ethanol is toxic, too, but people drink it all the time! On a separate note, propylene glycol is the less toxic of the two types of actual antifreeze.

 

Isopropanol works, too as a washer fluid "antifreeze". Its freezing pt is -88.5 C( -127.3 F). I actually make my own washer fluid by taking my "homemade" window cleaner: water, isopropanol, and vinegar (can leave out the vinegar) and diluting it a little bit. This is really inexpensive. Isopropanol still is not something you want to drink or let others drink, and still has the same health rating as methanol (2 on a scale of 0 to 4 with 4 being worst), but is readily available.

 

most of the time, anything fun and dissociative (like etoh :lol can be toxic in high doses. pretty much anything is toxic in high doses.

methanol isn't metabolized as nicely by ADH- unless of course you don't mind a little formaldehyde running around your body, and eventually formic acid. yum. acetaldehyde and the eventual acetic acid are the much more friendly products of ethanol metabolism, and can even be used in cellular metabolism.

i don't know anything about where meoh acts before it's metabolized- but etoh has so many different sites of action, and serious injury really results more from cns depression and/or hepatic toxicity than from metabolites.

here i just went and hijacked the thread. sorry, folks.

 

That is nothing compared to the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide. It's all around us and no one is aware of the danger. Thousands dead each year. Just check this out. http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html The horror of it all!

 

*eye roll*
technically, DHMO is the most abundant green house gas. now theres food for thought. and did you know that DHMO is the one of two major car emissions? the other is CO2