OK, those looking for serious and informative motoring-related discussion can leave now. I was bored on the M40 the other day and got to thinking about rear wipers. When they became commonplace in the late 70s, most described an arc of 90 degrees or a little more. In the 80s and 90s, a few designs used a down-up sweep - parked in the vertical position - perhaps to make them less likely to get trapped by snow. Range Rovers had the pivot at the top. Big Toyota estates had two of the things. But the 90-degree sweep was pretty well universal.
These days, rear wipers all seem to be mounted centrally and to sweep almost 180 degrees - many leaving quite a lot of unswept muck at the edges and corners. Does anyone still fit an old-school 90-degree wiper to the back of a current car?
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Our Aygo does and it's mounted for left hand drive so totally useless.
The swept area gives you a good clear view of the hard shoulder on the motorway, not much good when looking to overtake.
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Funnily enough I'd been thinking about this a couple of days ago.
The ones that start at horizontal seem to come straight from the ministry of carp design. I saw a Vauxhall (Zafira I think) where the wiper was obscuring the high brake light. Stupid design -- surely Opel's designers must have realised that faults develop on cars and things like this can happen?
daveyjp -- what's wrong with the door mirror?
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Never mind the symmetry of the rear wiper - all I want (especially in recent torrential rain) is the option to leave my rear wiper on CONSTANTLY when it's chucking it down.
So why can't I do so (while driving forwards at least)? Whose decision was it to replace constant ON rear wiper with (one speed) intermittent ONLY on 90% of new cars?
For some drivers (I assume those with a military background) the action of timing glances to the rear view mirror at precise 5.5 second intervals is no hardship, but for the rest of us this so-called progress is a step back in time.
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In an era where cars leave a single production line destined for both LHD and RHD markets, a symmetrical rear wiper makes sense. It thus results in a relatively useless swept area for both LHD and RHD motors, ensuring the equality and mediocrity that typifies modern life.
Re rear wiper frequency, try a Panda. Mine has intermittent rear wipe which seems to also synchronise with the front wipers, if they are operating, but also has a constant setting. If any wipers at all are switched on, the rear wipers wipe constantly as soon as reverse is selected.
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Whose decision was it to replace constant ON rear wiper with (one speed) intermittent ONLY on 90% of new cars?
On most cars the amount of rain which settles on the rear screen is much less than on the front, and the time spent looking through the rear screen (via the mirror) is much less. And when all is said and done you're moving forward and therefore don't need as good vision through the rear screen.
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My Mazda6 does the 90-degree down-up sweep and probably being Japanese it's on the correct side for this country.
I cannot understand how some cars have the front wipers the wrong way around for the UK, e.g. current BMW 5 series.
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I cannot understand how some cars have the front wipers the wrong way around for the UK, e.g. current BMW 5 series.
BMW is considered to be a premium car and they can't design wiper properly??
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BMW is considered to be a premium car and they can't design wiper properly??
[cough] Mini Cooper [/cough]
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Whose decision was it to replace constant ON rear wiper with (one speed) intermittent ONLY on 90% of new cars?
The lack of intermitant rear wipe is a significant failing on our Jazz. I've never driven it in conditions wet enough to warrant conituous use so having to switch it on and off constantly is a totally un-necessary distraction.
Years ago I fitted a variable wiper control to rear wiper on a Capri (I did say years ago!) and that worked well.
I guess the next thing is a rain sensor on the rear window!
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Years ago I fitted a variable wiper control to rear wiper on a Capri (I did say years ago!) and that worked well.
I made a variable delay wiper control in the late 1960s (I saw the circuit in an article in a magazine) but I had to modify it because the minimum delay was literally about five minutes! It was OK after trial and error modifications though.
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EC directives specify a MINIMUM area of the screen that the wipers must clear and many manufacturers meet this on RHD with the LHD set-up and so don't bother to develop a RHD set-up-seeing that the vast majority of production is LHD.
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Go back to the 1970s and nearly every Leyland and Rootes car came out of the factory with the (front) wipers set up the wrong way round! And this was nothing to do with export sales - LHD models were also given back to front wipers! The few cars made with LHD biased wipers these days (BMW, Peugeot, Renault) tend to have an extension arm to make the wiper "jump" into the upper right corner.
With rear wipers it's pot luck but most of them are pretty good.
Don't know if this is worth developing into a separate thread, but was there ever a more brilliant wiper set up than the Seat Altea's, or a more wacky, idiotic arrangement than the Renault Alpine's? tinyurl.com/5ezhxt (Yes, the wipers rest in the "outboard" position and sweep up to the middle and crash into each other!)
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as dr chris reported fiat got it spot on with the Panda. properly set up for rhd. select reverse with front wipers on and you get a swipe from the rear wipers, parks at bottom of screen.
with the near vertical tailgate it,s a must have, and it works a treat.
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My Hyundai coupe rear wiper parks parallel to the side of the hatch and wipes to 90°.
It also can wipe constantly or intermittently. Rarely need the wiper on in either mode after setting off and it makes a racket flapping in both directions.
SWMBO Getz has an almost 180° ,constant only, rear wiper and it also makes a horrible noise.Must get round to adjusting it.
Net result is much the same view out of the rear in both.
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