Both my Volvo S80 and Mercedes W124 have headlamp wipers, but I can't recall seeing a current-production car with these little wiperettes. High-pressure washers, certainly - but have wipers been quietly pensioned off?
Possibly the result of much larger, curved headlight assembles?
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Reckon its due to polycarbonate headlights which are much more shatter resistant than glass though would surely get scratched by wipers.
Not withstanding the fact that high pressure washers are probably cheaper to manufacture than wipers and washers.
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The irregular shape of modern headlights don't really lend themselves to wipers.
Edited by Robin Reliant on 05/01/2010 at 14:56
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It has nothing to do with the shape of headlights but that they are banned due to pedestrian crash regulations. Pop up headlamps are no more for the same reason.
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Not aware of any legislation to ban either popup headlights or headlight wipers. Both are expensive to manufacture and there are better and cheaper solutions these days. The high pressure headlight washer system is also easier to integrate into the car styling.
The popup headlight was a relic due to US legislation requiring sealed beam headlights. It was virtually impossible to integrate these into the front of a car with a low bonnet line whilst still complying with US minimum headlight height legislation.
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Too much damage inflicted by monkeys in safari parks?
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There is no specific legislation banning them but you can't have any non deformable objects on the front of a car these days which effectively makes them impossible to fit and comply with type approval. Pop up headlamps obviously are considered a "hazard" if somebody goes over the bonnet with them popped up.
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I thought pop up headlamps just went out of fashion? And must create a lot of drag when popped up.
I had wipers on my Saab 9-3 and the motors were a common failure item on older cars.
Did have one journey though where they did the job - was driving in the dark in a blizzard and realised my headlight output was diminishing to almost nothing. A flick of the wash wipe and I'd got perfect light output again.
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Still notice a few cars with headlamp washers/jets, but no wipers. I fail to see the benefits of having only washers though. Imagine what little use spraying screenwash onto a windscreen would be with no wipers to clean if off.
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May of course be wrong here but I thought any vehicle fitted with xenons had to have washers too ?
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Washer thing froze partially open on the Honda - reasonably effective in use though. Higher concentration of screenwasher in use now - Honda has a five liter capacity - shocking how quickly it empties though.
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Had to get a new headlamp washer doovry for the Qashqai last week. It was leaking so badly that when filling the washer bottle the contents simply flowed out again through the headlamp washer.
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