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Windshield Wipers don't wipe

Submitted by: Matt Ridge

Background: I don't think I have talked to any Corrado owners who can honestly say that their winshield wipers work well. They just push the water around and sometimes would make the visibility worse. Some of us have tried RainX and that works better than nothing, but the wipers still don't do their job. I tried numerous types of wiper blades, bought new wiper arms from VW and still could not improve the performance.

Problem: The wiper arms (the black metal parts that are attached to the motor shaft at one end and have a 180 degree bend at the other) are spring loaded and should force the wiper blades to contact the winshield with a decent amount of pressure. In reality, the hinge on the arm is bottomed out and puts very little pressure on the blade at all. The wiper blade skims across the windshield instead of wiping.

Solutions:
Bend the wiper arms so that the hinge doesn't bottom out. This works but it looks terrible.

  1. Lift the wiper arm into the position like you are going to change the blades.
  2. While holding the bottom of the arm (near the spring), pull the top towards the windshield, bending the flat metal portion of the arm. I bent mine about two or three inches, so don't be shy.
  3. Try the wipers and bend them some more if they are still unacceptable.

Grind away the portion of the arm that is causing the spring to bottom out. I couldn't take the looks of my wiper arms as they were bent quite a bit so I hooked up my Dremel and started cutting.

   • You will need a high-speed metal cutting bit, preferably a small, round one, to do the job properly.

  1. Remove the wiper arm from your car. Pop off the plastic cap that covers the 12mm nut holding the arm to the motor shaft. Remove the nut and wiggle the arm around until it comes off of the splined shaft.
  2. If you have bent your arm before, bend it back to the stock position.
  3. Hinge the arm so that it locks in the postion used to changed the blade.
  4. Look at the portion of the arm that attaches to the motor shaft and notice there is a "lobe" on each side of the metal ring that holds the spring in place. The tops of these lobes need to be ground off to allow the arm to hinge farther.
  5. Using the Dremel, carefully remove about 1/8" from each lobe. This part of the arm is aluminum, but the other parts are steel, so be careful not to remove any paint from the steel or it will be susceptible to rust.
  6. This is difficult to explain, but I cut the lobes at an angle. What you are trying to do is to allow the hinge to pivot farther towards the windshield.

This completely fixes the problem. My wipers work now better that I would ever have imagined. I wish I had done this years ago.



Buy the replacement arms. A few people have told me that they bought "redesigned" wiper arms from VW. I bought replacement ones a couple of years ago and they were the same as the stock ones.
   • Driver's side part number: 535-955-409-A
   • Passenger's side part number: 535-955-410-B
   Thanks to Dave Schmidt and Francois-Valery

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