I drove my 2014 Cayenne diesel yesterday for 17 hours through some nasty snow, sleet and freezing rain in rural New England and Canada - 10 hours at night. I almost had to abort my trip in the middle of nowhere a few times due to a catastrophic failure of my window and light washing systems.

The first sign of trouble was when I noticed my left front washer cover had not fully retracted. About 60 miles later, my front and rear washers failed to pump the fluid. For all three systems you can hear the pump trying to work.

It is possible at that stage I had run out of fluid, but I had not received a low level warning. . I now see the system holds over 7 quarts.

At that point I added a gallon of non OEM fluid (all that was available), but it still didn't work. I spoke with a Porsche friend who suggested locking and letting the car sit or pulling the fuse. I did the former and it started working again.

60 miles later it failed again. I topped off the tank with two more quarts. The systems still didn't work. And this time locking and letting it sit did not help. I then drove for 10 miles with the system not working and poor visibility. I stopped to clean the window manually checked everything and it started working again.

We arrived safely in the middle of nowhere in Canada. The left front headlight washer has now retracted but is covered in ice.

I don't think we had line freezing because temperatures ranged between 24 and 35, mostly around 32.

We also had issues with ice buildup on the windshield and wipers which required blasting the defrost. This made the cabin unbearably hot.

I had put winter tires instead of the all seasons for the first time this winter. The performance with all seasons is fine but the performance with snow tires was amazing. The car is a champ.