Windshield washer fluid leak

[yupetc]

My friend's X5 had the same leak 2 months back. I took the fender panel off to have a look. Found some green/white deposits at the joints between the jet pump and the reservoir. Though it doesn't seem like the reservoir has a leak, they asked me nicely to replace both the pump and the reservoir seeing how intense the job is. It's not a motor swap, but removing that fender panel does have its merit. After the replacement, the car's back to normal, no leak.

Based on what I saw during that job, I'd say its the O-rings. When I got it all taken apart, I can see a trail of deposit residuals from the sight of the O-ring where the jet pump inserts into the reservoir. This is also where I find it being wet. O-rings are known to oxidize over time, and as they become brittle and lose its rigidity, it may become out of tolerance and give you these leaks.

For all of you who are having these leaks (even if it's intermittent), your best bet is to get that O-ring replaced. And this is not an easy gig, it took me an hour to take many things apart in order to get to it; and I'm a quite seasoned car tinkerer. I've taken the N55 motor out of our F15 X5, rebuilt; Id say I know my way around this car somewhat. Henceforth, if you can get to this point, you might as well replace the reservoir and the jet pump IF the age or the mileage of the vehicle is quite high. Good luck, everyone.

[Mike Whitney]

Just tackled the "small puddle of wiper fluid behind the FR wheel" today. 2015 X5 4.4 w/ ~85k. Been happening on and off for ~1 year, recently got worse.

In my case it was not the grommet, it was the joint between the black pump body and the white attachment. See the pics. Grommet was fine and not leaking. You can also see that BMW updated the grommet screen from all rubber to rubber+plastic. Not sure why. Replaced the pump and all is fine now.

There are a couple write ups on here but here is some advice based on what I experienced:

- No need to loosen or remove the front bumper
- Front liner needs to come off
- Rear of rear liner just needs to be loose, doesn't need to come off
- Running board trim does not need to be completely removed, just the front ~4 clips to get to the bottom screws for the fender
- Fender definitely needs to come off. I tried loosening the front bolt and rotating the reservoir forward (this works on E90 and others) but there's not enough clearance on the F15

Trying lots of wrong ways this ended up being ~4 hrs for an experienced wrencher. There are just like 100 small fasteners to deal with. 2 hrs if I had to do it again.

[destronik]

Had the same issue of leaking. Ended up being rubber grommet/bushing from the washer pump. Ended up getting the pump replaced. No more leaks.