Wipers, Motors & Washers

Start with blades, since rubber degrades from sunlight and ozone whether the wipers are used or not, and a blade past its useful life smears no matter how clean the screen is. Clean the glass properly first with a decontaminating polish, because a screen with bonded traffic film makes new blades chatter within a week. If fresh blades on a clean screen still judder, look at the arm: a bent arm or a tired spring holds the blade at the wrong angle to the glass, and both are listed here.

A linkage ball joint has popped off or worn out. The mechanism converts one motor's rotation into two sweeps through a set of rods and ball joints, and when one of those separates the motor spins freely while the arms flail or sit still. You can usually hear the difference: a healthy system thumps rhythmically at each end of the sweep, a detached one runs smoothly and quietly. Replace the linkage rather than trying to reseat the joint, since a joint that has come apart once is worn.

Partly, and it depends why. If an arm has slipped on its splined pivot, which happens when the nut was not torqued or the blade jammed against ice, you can lift the arm off and reposition it against the marks you made. If the arms have never been disturbed and the sweep has drifted, the linkage joints have worn and the geometry has changed, which is not adjustable. Mark the park positions on the glass with tape before removing anything so you have a reference to return to.

Listen at the reservoir while somebody operates the stalk. A pump that hums but delivers nothing has a blocked jet, a split hose or a clogged filter on its inlet, and clearing those costs nothing. Silence points at the pump, its fuse or its wiring. Blocked jets are the most common cause by a wide margin, and a fine pin or a burst of compressed air clears them. If the pump has failed, the reservoir and pump are listed here both as an assembly and, on some references, together with the motor.

Yes, and it is a satisfying job. Park the wipers, mark the blade positions on the glass, remove the arm nuts and lift the arms off with a puller rather than levering, take off the scuttle panel, then unbolt the linkage and motor as one assembly and separate them on the bench. Budget an hour or two. The one rule worth respecting is to fit the motor in its parked position before refitting the arms, or the sweep will finish in the wrong place.

Rarely. Most cars use a longer blade on the driver's side and a shorter one on the passenger side, because the sweep pattern is designed around the driver's field of view and the shape of the screen. Ordering two of the same length is one of the most common mistakes in this category. The listings here give left and right separately, so check both numbers, and note that the attachment type at the arm also varies between hook, push button, side pin and bayonet fittings.

Blades, washer hoses, jets and arm springs are trivial purchases. Wiper arms and washer pumps are modest. The expensive items are complete linkages, reservoir assemblies with pumps fitted, and rear wiper motor and bracket assemblies. Live figures for the group are shown at the head of this page. The buying advice is simple enough: replace blades in pairs and replace them before they smear rather than after, because a hardened blade scores the windscreen and the glass costs many times what the blades do.

Because it is an entirely separate system. A rear wiper has its own small motor with the crank built into it, its own fuse and its own washer line running the length of the car. Failures cluster in three places: the motor itself, the washer line where it crosses into the tailgate through a flexing loom, and the spindle seal, which lets water into the motor and corrodes it from inside. The rear wiper motor and bracket assembly is listed here, as are the rear washer line sub assemblies.

Roughly once a year for most drivers, and sooner in hot climates where sunlight breaks down the rubber faster than use does. The honest test is not the calendar but the glass: if a single pass leaves streaks, haze or missed bands after the screen has been properly cleaned, the edge has gone. Lifting the arms away from the screen in frost, and clearing snow before switching the wipers on, does more to extend blade life than any treatment applied to the rubber.

Usually not. The motor contains a park switch that keeps it running until the mechanism reaches the bottom of its sweep, and when that switch or its circuit fails, the wipers stop wherever they were when you released the stalk. Mechanical binding produces a different symptom, with the motor labouring or the thermal cut out tripping and the wipers returning after a rest. Have the park circuit checked before ordering a linkage, since a motor problem and a mechanism problem call for different parts.

Only where the spline pattern, the length and the OE number all agree. The splined post is the critical dimension, and an arm that is almost right will feel fine when fitted and slip the first time a blade catches on ice. Length matters too, since it sets where the blade sits relative to the screen edge. Read the number from the old arm or from your vehicle documents, and where the reference brings back nothing, send it through the quote form to be checked against the factory catalogue.

Yes. Blades and arms are usually priced. Motors, linkages and washer reservoirs are the ones that appear without a figure, because each is shaped to a single scuttle and steering side. Send the number and say whether the car is left or right hand drive. Where the wipers have started parking in the wrong place or stopping mid sweep, check the linkage before ordering a motor, since a worn ball joint in the linkage lets the arms lag and the motor is usually innocent. Add the arm spring nuts and caps, as those rarely survive removal.