You know what is a constant and reliable source of annoyance? A minor annoyance, I suppose, but also a potent one. It’s when you have a pine needle or some similar crap stuck between your wiper blade and your windshield, and you turn on the wipers, which causes the unwanted, trapped object (usually a stupid pine needle, but it could be a leaf or a flower petal or a faerie wing or some other similar shit) to leave an annoying, arc-shaped streak on the windshield, usually right smack dab in the middle of your field of vision. It’s so irritating. And it happens all the time. And it’s not just me kvetching about this, look, here’s many others griping, too. Everyone hates this. So why hasn’t there been a solution for this, beyond having to stop and get out of your damn car in the rain and lift the wiper and smack the pine needle out of the way, like some sort of filthy animal? I have no idea why. But I think I have an idea about to handle this, and that’s why I asked you here today. Let’s get to it.
In case you’re from, say, a suburb located on the far side of South Mars and you’re not familiar with this problem, I made a little animated GIF for you to illustrate it. Just to be sure you’re not distracted by any specific car, I used the most common, ignorable car I could think of as the model here, a 1979 Klondike Pelican 1800:
You get it, right? The windshield streaks made by the debris like a pine needles? Of course you get it. As we established, this is an incredibly common annoyance. So, what’s the simplest way wiper design could be changed to free mankind once and for all from the tyranny of the Crap Stuck Under Your Wipers? Well, I have two ideas. Let’s look at Solution One:
This solution would add a solenoid to the conventional wiper mechanism that would allow the wiper shaft to be raised a bit from the windshield. I’m thinking the solenoid would be actuated by a button on the dashboard or wiper stalk, so the driver can “thump” the wipers up and down at whatever pace they desire, or, if they choose, they can hold that button down and keep the wipers raised as they drive, letting wind free anything that may have come between wiper and blade. [Ed note: This GIF is pretty suggestive, are we allowed to show this? – MH]
I’m imagining a pretty powerful solenoid for this purpose, so it could also be used to break wipers free from being iced to the windshield in winter, and for making satisfying-sounding thonks against the windshield that could be employed while listening to loud music so everyone knows how much you’re into it. It could also be a fun way of getting people’s attention without resorting to your horn, too, or even be something that could happen when you click your car’s remote locking. Really, there’s all kinds of reasons to integrate a thump mechanism into windshield wipers.
Now, if that feels too complex for you, or if you’d like a simpler solution that could be retrofitted to pretty much any car, how about this:
This would just be a simple grooved rubber strip, backed with strong adhesive, that you’d place at the base of your windshield, right about where your wipers normally park. As they rotate in their wiperly arcs, they’d go over the rubber strip, which should effectively remove any debris from the blades. Will this cause more blade wear? Probably a bit, sure. Will some marginal wipers have trouble getting wipers over even a thin rubber strip? Maybe? But I think for the most part, this could be pretty effective, and could be fitted to pretty much any vehicle cheaply and easily.
Hell, they could sell this stuff by the roll at auto parts stores! Maybe even with different types of textures that prove better for specific types of debris or grit or foliage? There’s something here, I’m sure of it, and I bet 3M will have this product on shelves in two months and I won’t even get a gift card in the mail. Thanks a lot, 3M.
So what does everyone think? Would either of these work? Have any preferences? You own ideas? We’re a think tank here at The Autopian, so let’s talk this out and free the world of this annoyance, once and for all!
You’re welcome, humanity.
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I reach out the drivers window and stick my fingers under the blade when it’s at the top of it’s stroke.That brief lift clears the debris.
But will this work on LHD cars?I’m not sure how the wipers are configured in the states
BTW Jason you totally got me with the Klondike pelican.I actually looked it up just in case it was real
Screw you wimps. I take my shotgun and blast the inside of the windshield as the blockage goes by. At least on my cars that still have windshields. Manup you girlymen.
What I really want with windshield wipers is that they shut themselves off when you leave your car. I absolutely hate when I start my car the next day only to have the wipers scrape against the dry windshield. Worse is when I start my car the next day and the wipers try to operate when they are encased in ice.
This would do the job.
https://www.wipershaker.com/
double sided ratchet blades, after so many ratchets it flips to the other side.
Simplest possible solution (if possibly not the safest): A setting on your wiper control that locks the wiper in the vertical position. This allows you to reach out the window and unstick anything in the driver side wiper. No new equipment is required, just a slightly different switch or programming. It does nothing for the passenger side, but (at least when I’m driving), they’re better off not being able to see what’s happening outside of the windows.
The rubber wiper cleanser strip seems brilliant. Thats such a low cost and simple solution to a real problem. I have a stupid oak tree over my driveway that drops stupid leaves on my car and they inevitably get stuck in the wipers. Make this and sell rolls of it in the online store and get rich quick! This could be a start to the much-needed full line of Autopian Automotive products.
In Finland the cleaning strip was called ‘turvaura’ (‘safety groove’), invented 1974 by Mikko Paretskoi.
A photo of such at https://dognet.fi/rmz/turvaura/large/0001.jpg
I think that is better than the one diagrammed in this article. It’s put in a spot where the wiper would still have some velocity in either direction, but is still totally unobtrusive.
The other thing I like about the solenoid mechanism as a way of getting people’s attention is that it plays to the car’s front as a face metaphor. If the grill’s the mouth and the headlights are the eyes, then the wipers are the eyebrows. Thus lifting the wipers would be a metaphorical lifting of the eyebrows. You could lift your wipers and hold them to express, say, mild astonishment. Or you could wiggle your wiper-brows if you want to be more suggestive.
Is no one going to mention that oddly rendered Austin Healey Sprite up there ?!!
Are those turn signals on top of the front fender?
The real solution to streaky windshields is to just get rid of windshields altogether.
Two birds with one stone: Wipers are also an aerodynamic mess. Have them live under a cover unless they’re actively being used. The pine needles don’t get stuck in the first place, and better aero for when that part of the car comes into play, as it increasingly is.
You remind me of older vehicles that would extend their hood to partially cover the wipers; I miss having a car that did that.
Go figure my wife’s ‘16 Audi Q5 has that, where the wipers sit below the plane of the hood. Except you can’t lift the arms up like when you park before an ice storm, or to get the one leaf that managed to find its way under the blade right at eye level on a freaking interstate. They lift up about a quarter inch and hit the lip of the hood. Dumbest goddamned thing I’ve ever seen and surprised the Germans screwed that one up so badly. I hate that damned car every time I have to drive it (which is rarely but bad enough).
You’re doing it wrong. I have a ’16 Q3 and also just recently a ’15 A3. They are made to be able to move them manually. You can grab the driver’s blade and move it up the window by hand a few degrees which moves both blades together thus allowing the arms to be pulled away from the window as you like. My 07 Passat wagon was the same way. I’ve lived with this for so long, I thought this was just a common knowledge thing but apparently it isn’t.
Torch…you have a kid at the optimal age to just get out and remove the pine needle / banana peel / granola bar wrapper / The End Is Near flyer for you. I make my 11-year old get out for this reason all the time, and he hates me only marginally more than he would have anyway.
Well, hate is too strong a word. Maybe annoyed by me only marginally more than he would have anyway.
I think an active cleaning system is in order. The windshield wiper wiper.
I live in a semi desert so I rarely get stuff stuck under my wipers, just lots of dust
Patent it quickly before your “Flash of Genius” gets stolen by Big Ccar up and ruins your life.
Or how about….. And I’m thinking way out the box here….. Getting out and removing the debris…. WOW *\0/*
Manual labor? No thank you.
I don’t own a pink hoverboard so I can’t just step out of the car while on the highway to clear debris. 😛
I think we should take a lesson from some aircraft and use “air bleed.” Eliminate wipers altogether, and clear the windshield with high velocity air. Of course, it’s easier to do that with a jet engine and a compressor stage, but it shouldn’t be impossible. No moving parts exposed to the elements, no replacing wiperblades (or people forgetting to replace wiper blades resulting in low viz), just warm high-speed air. If it’s low enough power draw, maybe it could prevent insect impacts altogether by having it always on.
Cars should have small jet engines attached just for this purpose.
And Torch just invented the wiper blade wiper blade, the wiper blade for wiper blades. Well done sir!
Also, can confirm as someone who lives amongst pines…..pine straw sucks.
Wiper wipers! That’s what we need!
But who wipes the wiper of the wiper blade?
I propose that this concept be sold not to 3M, but to Warp Plastics. Harold Warp loved his cars!!
https://pioneervillage.com
Or make the blade lift at the end of each wipe as part of the motion.
Even better make it lift at the end and at the rest position to avoid it being frozen to the glass.
Add a window winder to the windscreen, just roll it down and back up again. That works on my side windows.
“tired of pine straw under your wipers? Roll down the windshield and blow it in your car!”
Also, I love the idea of sales coming to engineering and being all “We need the windshield to retract into the firewall. Nvm important things like tubes, wires, legs, etc. that pass through it. We’re marketing it already, make it happen.
Why would there be a firewall at the front of the car? The firewall goes between me and the engine which of course is behind me.
Someone clearly lives in the endless pine forest that is the Raleigh-Durham area.
Pine needles really do suck. There’s a town outside our small city that is basically built beneath a forest of massive pines (hey at least they didn’t just mow down the whole forest!) but man, everyone I know that lives there contends with sap on their cars and pine needles everywhere. Removing sap sucks.
RDU represent!
Username checks out
What’s worse than pine needles are the tiny stick stems that hold the leaflets on a Honey Locust tree. They’re more pliable than pine needles and get into EVERYTHING.
My main issue is snow/ice getting there – or the wipers being frozen to the windshield, not anything tree-related (there are zero trees near where we park our cars at the end of our driveway by the garage).
I try to remember to fold my wipers up but the nights I forget are the ones with huge storms.
I remember seeing a car with little heater lines where the wipers rest and thought it was brilliant. All cars should have that.
Some Chrysler minivans had this feature. We had a ’98 T&C that did.
This might actually be better than me putting my arm out the window and trying to grab the blade when it comes near me.
I was going to say there is already a solution. I just press my hand against the window and let the wiper ride up on the back of my hand/fingers. Then lift my hand up and away it goes.
I’m also 6’4″ with some decent length arms. So this might be a stretch for others.
“right smack dab in the middle of your field of vision”
Right? The amount of relief I feel now that this isn’t the universe fucking with me when ever I drive is immense. Now I know the universe is fucking with everybody. That HAS to be what it is. The chances that a bug just happens to fly along at the exact right spot to result in a buggy smear right at eye level EVERY.SINGLE.TIME has to mean something.
Come on 3M! Save us!
The erection/retraction solenoid won’t work because the blades are spring-loaded to press against the windshield — the spring & hinge action overcoming any reasonable protrusion produced by the solenoid.
As a solution, how ’bout this:
Small cams mechanically (or solenoidically) raised from their places just beyond the wipers’ hinges and oriented along the wipers’ end of sweep. As each wiper reaches the outermost edge of a sweep action (i.e., furthest from its “parked” position) the sprung wiper arm rides up on the now-protruding cam surface (a roller?), lifting the blade away from the glass — say, 1/4 inch. Junk is free to be redistributed, and any airflow or water rivulets will help.
After the blade is sweeping cleanly, the cams are retracted, all with the push of a button.
Good point. There is an alternative solution. I small actuator at the joint in the wiper arm could pull it back when vacuum is applied and just float when vacuum is off. That would allow the spring to work and still be able to lift the arms off momentarily.
Didn’t the mid-90’s Toyota 4Runner have something like this on the tailgate to lift the wiper clear of the glass as it came to the bottom of its sweep, because it parked over the tailgate to allow the glass to lift separately? Or was it something else? I can remember where I saw this (J-Block at GKN Technology in Wolverhampton, now a housing development), but not absolutely certain which vehicle.
They did up until 2009. When the wiper isn’t “active” it drops down another few degrees and engages a tab on the liftgate. I believe this has more to do with keeping the wiper away when you roll down the back window, but it is helpful in avoiding debris stuck between the wiper and glass
I pretty much solved this problem by moving to the desert. Besides there being a shortage of trees to drop stuff on the windshield, the wipers get used so rarely that they glue themselves to the glass and nothing can get under them.
I once had a set of blades dry rot before I ever had a chance to use them
Only once?