Automatic Wipers And Frozen Windscreens

[Peter Sale]

I normally leave my wipers in the 'Auto' position and forget about them, leaving them to work as required. (Had a Renfault where you always had to turn them off and then back on which was silly)

This morning we had nice coating of ice on the windscreen, almost like frozen rain. I am used to not using the wipers until the screen has de-iced due to the damage that can be done to the wipers and possibily the mechanism. Just as I scraped the windscreen at the bottom, near the wipers, the wipers decided that they were free and also required as the sensor was covered. When they burst into movement it made me jump and didn't do the rubber blades much good as they scrawped across the ice.

Have moved the wiper stalk from the 'auto' position now and will try and remember to do this everytime I park overnight in the colder weather.

Thought this might be of use to someone else.

Peter

[Aceshigh84]

Yeah, I've been thinking the same thing for the last few weeks, "must get in to the habit of turning off the auto wipers".

Then today, lean into the car to power it on and turn on the demisters and as soon as I press the power button I realise my mistake and grimace for the few seconds it takes the wipers to scrape across the screen :-(

[Grumpy Cabbie]

One of those things to remember. I had an MR2 years ago and found out the hard way that leaving the headlights down in heavy frost was not great if you then wanted to drive in the dark (the headlights were frozen shut). After that I always left them in the Up position in winter. Didn't look as good, but much more practical.

[kithmo]

Auto wipers is one of my pet hates, they never seem to work right. If I leave them on Auto all the time they are late starting to wipe when it starts raining, the 3 sensitivity settings only seem to make the wipe frequency different, occasionally and some times they wipe when the screen is almost dry, I'd rather have intermittent wipers with variable frequency than auto. This is the 3rd car I've had with Auto wipers and they all had the same problems to different degrees.

[stompe]

I bought this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL21PTYAba0 its fantastic zip along no wipers needed

[Cyker]

Sounds to me like Renault had quite a good idea then! (i.e. having to turn the auto-wipers off and on again to activate them when you turn the car back on) ;)

One cool thing about the silicone wipers I have is the silicone layer makes scraping the ice off soooo much easier