Sticky wipers

[jonbarrett]

My wiper motor is not strong enough to sweep the wipers if the screen is dry. Is this normal? The problem is the wipers can jam during the MOT because the screen is dry.

The wiper motor was dead when I bought the car and I replaced it with one from a breakers. Can these motors 'loose' power over time?

[kevin63]

The wiper motors do seem very weak, I always make sure the screen is wet before switching the wipers on, after all that is what they are designed to be used for and not used on a dry screen.

[jonbarrett]

Agreed, it's the MOT I'm worried about.

[APB_V8]

My wiper motor was dead when I bought my Cerbie. Replaced with a recon unit. It sucks. I'm currently looking to see if I can replace the lot with a different system. Let you know what I come up with.

[motorsportrescue]

Does anyone remember what they were like from the factory? Surely if they were as bad as mine I'd have taken the car back!

[jonbarrett]

Difficult to see how to redesign the motor given the space available and the existing voltage/current limits. However, a few gearbox/wiper blade mods might do it. I'll start experimenting.

[kevin63]

I use Autoglym glass polish on my windscreen which means I don't use the wipers much, I tried rainX but did not like it when I had to use the wipers. The glass polish cleans the screen brilliant too.

[Toadusmodus]

I would be interested to hear any options on this as my wipers suffer from the same problem. Spent a whole day trying to get them working easier without any success, including smaller blades of different shapes etc.

[scott666]

My wipers started to go weak and occasonally would stop mid screen needing a shove to get going. I took the motor g/box of the car, stripped it down and found that it was full of water. This had caused the motor brushes to fall apart. I dried the motor out, eventually traced some new brushes, put it all back together with a new park switch. The motor is in the worst place possible for collecting water, right underneath where water runs off the windscreen, so if your car is used in the wet it will have water in it.

[plumAJP]

scott, did all the messing you did make it better or not?

and by better i mean a strong sweep or is it still a juddery struggle

[JensenA]

I removed the passenger wiper from my car. It seems a lot happier with just one blade, clears most of the screen and it's passed 2 MOT's like that.

[FarmyardPants]

motorsportrescue said:

Does anyone remember what they were like from the factory? Surely if they were as bad as mine I'd have taken the car back!

The oem wipers were fine on my car, just like any other car. Then it was repaired following its engine bay fire with all new parts, and it's now very feeble. It's touch and go whether the wipers will make it across the screen. So maybe the motor spec changed, or the cerb has the wrong wiper motor part number associated with it. Def seems like a different part compared with the original.

[scott666]

since i did the repairs to the motor g/box it seems a lot stronger. It hasn't missed a full sweep yet even dry and it is smooth rather than juddery. Its had a real test recently with the terrible weather as I use the car everyday. Also I found a bit of rainx works a treat.