Heated washer jets?

Unfortunately, I've just discovered that those little 'circles' are the actual heater elements...
I think they'll be little baby PTC heater 'stones' that sit between the ignition live contact and the metal body of the jet. As you can see in my piccies, lots of corrosion in there, and no possibility of an electrical contact between the top surface of the heater and the live contact leaf.

VW managed to only supply one new one for me (191 955 986A), which was kinda OK as it meant I only spent half as much (still 17.50! inc. VAT and discount), and you only really need the driver's-side one to work. Resistance across the pins of a new one = 25 Ohms approx.

Guts of the old one look like this:


I think the front of the water-exit tube must be designed to seal up against the inside of the plastic housing so that the electrics don't get wet. This shot shows the heater disk displaced out a little from its home:

Replacing the heater disc with a chunk of metal will short out the wiring, which is fortunately fused...

I tried cleaning up the surfaces of the old heater disc, but couldn't get a good contact no matter what I did. I think these have a special coating on when new, which may have all gone. [:^(] I'll try the other one some time, which at least gave a reading when I measured it last week. I might look into buying just the heater element from somewhere like RS, they may well do something close enough to work, for not so much cash.

 

yeah was having a think bout what they were made of and how they heated up!
The one I do have isn't magnetic so I took the tinfoil off the other one thinking it may short out.