Wiper heaters and icing
I drove on the highway the other day and it was -10c after a decent snow. I pre conditioned the car and had it all cleared off the vehicle.
When I went to use the wipers and washer, the driver side wiper only contacted the windshield at the ends of the squeegee leaving lots of washer fluid and an obscured view.
I'm well versed in icy frozen wipers and usually at this point I'd put the window down and lift the wiper as it comes to the edge of the windshield, breaking off any ice but this time my Windows were all frozen shut too, only the rear passenger window would open but my 4 year old couldn't reach my iced up wiper. Eventually it either warmed up enough or the washer fluid melted the ice, but either way at the end of my 2.5hr road trip they were working well enough.
On my way back home the next day I had the same problem, but I pulled over to crack the ice off the wiper squeegee which helped. I noticed the passenger wiper had virtually no ice on it so then I got to thinking that maybe the heated wiper or the windshield had a problem.
It seems I don't have a heated windshield on this car, and the heated portion of the wiper isn't actually the wiper squeegee but the wiper Blade holders have small heated washer fluid reservoirs to keep the fluid from freezing.
I checked both elements for resistance and sure enough, the driver one is open circuit (dead) do you guys think the little heaters do anything more than keeping the fluid from freezing? I'm planning on replacing it anyway but I thought I'd ask here for your experience with these cars. Since the wipers are buried under the hood it makes clearing all that built up snow nearly impossible without using the service position and I hoped pre conditioning the car would melt away most of the snow, but it seems it must refreeze back onto the wipers.
My car lives outside, no garage BTW.
I drove on the highway the other day and it was -10c after a decent snow. I pre conditioned the car and had it all cleared off the vehicle.
When I went to use the wipers and washer, the driver side wiper only contacted the windshield at the ends of the squeegee leaving lots of washer fluid and an obscured view.
I'm well versed in icy frozen wipers and usually at this point I'd put the window down and lift the wiper as it comes to the edge of the windshield, breaking off any ice but this time my Windows were all frozen shut too, only the rear passenger window would open but my 4 year old couldn't reach my iced up wiper. Eventually it either warmed up enough or the washer fluid melted the ice, but either way at the end of my 2.5hr road trip they were working well enough.
On my way back home the next day I had the same problem, but I pulled over to crack the ice off the wiper squeegee which helped. I noticed the passenger wiper had virtually no ice on it so then I got to thinking that maybe the heated wiper or the windshield had a problem.
It seems I don't have a heated windshield on this car, and the heated portion of the wiper isn't actually the wiper squeegee but the wiper Blade holders have small heated washer fluid reservoirs to keep the fluid from freezing.
I checked both elements for resistance and sure enough, the driver one is open circuit (dead) do you guys think the little heaters do anything more than keeping the fluid from freezing? I'm planning on replacing it anyway but I thought I'd ask here for your experience with these cars. Since the wipers are buried under the hood it makes clearing all that built up snow nearly impossible without using the service position and I hoped pre conditioning the car would melt away most of the snow, but it seems it must refreeze back onto the wipers.
My car lives outside, no garage BTW.