Greetings fellow weird car enthusiasts. Last week, I brought you one of my weird car hyper-fixations: Korean brake lights. Today, we are moving to the front of the vehicle and will be discussing windshield wipers.
These dancing little guys are the true underdogs of our cars. Without them, we wouldn’t be driving anywhere. We would all be crashed in a ditch somewhere off some major interstate in the middle of nowhere because our windshields were full of fog, rain, and snow.
Let’s give our wipers a round of applause. They work hard for us to read silly bumper stickers like “my infant ran the NYC marathon” on the back of a dented Toyota Sienna. They allow us to see the beauty of the roads, like dense traffic full of Teslas on the 405. I feel like they deserve some recognition, eh? How about I jump into some of my modern favorites and you tell me some of yours? Deal? Once you’re done, head to Autozone and pick up some new blades for your wipers. They’ve earned it.
FJ Cruiser
Toyota
Oh, man. When I think windshield wipers, I think FJ. Three of them to be exact. Why three? With a steep, vertical windshield, two wipers of small-blade length are insufficient in wiping away moisture. Toyota was smart and stuck on an extra one for three identical wipers lined up along the dash. Therefore, they work as a team in clearing away mud after off-roading in a Macy’s parking lot. How sweet! If you ever buy an FJ, prepare to put aside $8 for an extra blade when you change them once a year. Other than that, wipe away, FJ wiper trio!
[Editor’s Note: I’d feel remiss if we didn’t at least mention the FJ’s tri-wiper pioneer, the MGB, which surprisingly has a windshield of similar proportions, just scaled down a lot:
Don’t forget your elders, FJ. – JT]
Ford Escape
Ford
The second-generation Ford Escape is not particularly noteworthy. It’s got lackluster performance and a plethora of transmission problems. When I spent a summer working at a Ford dealership, I probably drove about 5 of these with bad transmissions. Yikes. However, Ford did implement one creative element onto the Escape: the windshield wipers. The Ford Escape had two wiper arms of identical length that would rest on top of each other in the center of the dashboard. When in use, they would come out one at a time, wiping away on their respective sides of the windshield. It’s seriously genius! Much more windshield area is covered when done like this. I simply do not know why more cars don’t have this. It’s a game-changer and one that is safe!
Mini Clubman
Mini
Modern Minis are full of quirks. The interior has a unique center dash speedometer. The exterior pays homage to its British roots with the Union Jack turn signals, which are a flawed design, as Torch pointed out a few years back. Yet the Mini Clubman had a neat little party trick: barn doors! Barn doors are just cool. Interesting, unique, and functional (I think). Besides the Clubman, I can only recall the GMT800 Suburbans offering this. How does one design wipers for barn doors? GM simply did not include any on the Suburban. Mini, though, did. That’s right, each barn door has its own oppositely mounted wiper that meets in the middle. How cool! It’s almost as if they are giving each other a high five for successfully clearing a path away from the Mini Driver. Now they can see that tailgating Ram 1500 in their rearview mirror. Good job, Mini!
Tell me about your wipers. Do you rip them off in agony when they don’t go at your desired speed? Do you not have any? Wipe away!
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
The Ford wipers are even more interesting than they appear. Each wiper is driven by its own motor. They can individually be manually moved to any position with the car turned off. If you do this and don’t put them back in the right place, they do a sequence of moves, independent of each other, to get themselves set right again.
I think this was all done so each wiper could be the same length. The wipers are very long and have a lot of overlap when parked. You can see when they move that the action is a little odd, with the upper wiper moving faster than the lower one for part of the sweep so they don’t interfere with each other. I think they went with the two-motor solution in order to achieve this without having a mechanism that was too complicated.
The contemporary Honda Civic also had wipers with pivots at the outboard ends of the windshield, but the passenger side wiper is noticeably shorter than the driver’s side wiper.
My guess is that Ford went to all the trouble in order to have the same wiper design in left hand and right hand drive markets.
In any case, it works great. The coverage of the windshield is very good. The only part of the windshield that isn’t covered is the part that’s behind the rear view mirror.
The same type of design was used on the 3rd gen Focus and some other Ford vehicles.
Lots of cars have the outward-sweeping wipers like the Escape, you just gotta look for them. My Fusion has ’em too (Ford must like them), as did one of my mom’s Minivans when I was a kid (Pontiac Montana, maybe?). 9th Gen USDM Civic had them too.
As i’ve owned a few tiny cars over the years i’ve heard quite a few joking insults.Top of the heap was a friend asking how my wipers moved.
“Do they move in opposition”? He asks
‘Um… no.The usual side to side, together’
“So i guess the car rocks from side to side when they’re on?!”
Quite a number of cars from the 50s and 60s had the Ford Focus style. I’m not sure why that went out of favor. But certainly, the mechanics of the wiper systems were nowhere as good as today. I can remember how erratic they would be at times.
My Midget has three, the XJ6 has one big one. My F-250 has the usual and expected two. So my three vehicles have an average of two windshield wipers each but only one actually has two windshield wipers.
I loved the little rear wipers on my 2010 Clubman! So adorable 😀
And yes as others have said, the monowiper deserves its own article because it’s been done so many weird and wonderful ways! Mercedes E-class, Jaguar XJ6, Toyota Yaris, several supercars, etc.
Oh and don’t forget the twinned overlapping wipers sort-of-monowiper 993 911 setup!
Missing the Honda Fit’s ridiculously asymmetrical wipers. The main wiper is 28″ and the secondary one is 13″.
Was it the Merc R107 with the fairly wonky/uncoordinated pair?
I’m surprised you guys didn’t include the single arm wiper of the W210 Mercedes!
Amateurs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxU3KbSHH3o
That car either looks drunk, or like one of those inflated, wavy-arms decorations that businesses sometimes use to grab our attention. I’m not sure which.
Third gen ford Focus has the overlapping center wipers too.
The Ford Focus has the same wipers as the Escape, at least from the ’12 model year. Besides being effective at clearing a large part of the windshield, there are other benefits that make me wish more cars had opposing wipers.
– The part left uncleared is mostly hidden by the rear view mirror.
– I believe there are two separate motors. In any case, you can move the wipers by hand independently of each other. If you pull them out of place, they will figure out where they are in their motion and not collide, but instead pick up their motion at the right time.
– Since the wipers are the same length, it’s easier to buy enough to get a bulk rate.
Bingo!
But nowadays, many vehicles have safety features in that widow’s peak (cameras especially). I know my ’15 Subaru would complain if I didn’t have the window clean-enough, disabling the cruise control.
Recently moved on from my FJ Cruiser but in the years I owned it I don’t think a single person sitting in the passenger seat or back didn’t say “Whoa, there’re three!” the first time they saw three wipers go. I’ve also always been a sucker for headlight wipers, as a child nothing said ‘opulence’ like seeing a luxury car that had those.
+1 on the headlight wipers. I know headlight washers do the job in a more pedestrian-safety friendly manner but still not quite the same.
We inherited my MiL’s old 1997 Volvo 960 wagon. Between the headlight wipers and heated rearview mirrors, you could tell it was a car designed in Sweden rather than Los Angeles… and since none of the windows had any tint whatsoever, the enormous greenhouse coupled with the severely underpowered AC made L.A. summers pretty intolerable inside that car. (MiL originally bought it in the Bay Area.)
Tightest turn radius of any car I’ve ever driven, though. Freakishly so.
I have always liked wiper talk! Maybe too much looking over my comment…
I mentioned in another comment, SEAT in the 2000s had vertical-parked opposing wipers that would tuck against the A-pillars, not sure if any other cars have done that in modern times.
A roof-mount rear wiper that would sweep down on to the window used to be sort-of common, on wagons like the gen 3/4 Taurus, GM FWD A-body wagons, or the original S10 Blazer some brands started moving to this in recent years, just more hidden under a roof spoiler of sorts. Toyota did, but has been moving away from that on new intros like the Sienna, though the old 4Runner and GX still have it. GM also did so on the big SUVs, starting in the previous gen. Hyundai/Kia have moved to it on the new Tucson and Sportage.
Toyota often used an articulating base/mount for the passenger wiper that could stretch the wiper further up in the corner rather than just the regular arc. Most Lexus RX and Prius generations have had this (actually was referenced in this site’s close-up of the new Prius). It shows up in other vehicles too like the Mitsubishi Endeavor, just Toyota seems to be the most frequent user.
Also Toyota quirk: sometimes the original Highlander and 2nd-gen Avalon had their front wipers in different park positions – even in press photos. I think it parked in different spots each time to reduce any wear on the blade, but it looked a little sloppy to me in the official photos.
Another one that just felt “off” – the 2nd-gen Windstar (and Freestar) aped the 3rd-gen Chrysler vans with a rear wiper offset to the right of the CHMSL in the lower part of the rear window and would sweep almost a full 180. However Ford’s rear window was a bit trapezoidal? at the bottom and so the wiper was angled and the arm looked upside-down, with the “L” part of the arm at the top when it was parked, not beneath like it usually is with most other wipers of that shape – so it seemed to sweep inverted.
How about running changes during a production run to wipers? Usually just the rear one:
– Toyota Previa rear wiper arm switched after the first model year to an L-shape, to make a sightline for the newly added CHMSL in the rear window.
– Original GMC Acadia switched from an L-shape wiper arm I think with the facelift, but not sure why.
– Jeep added a separate-opening liftglass with the ZJ Grand Cherokee facelift, so they had to change the wiper from resting on the glass to park below the glass.
– Ford did a new tailgate with the 3rd-gen Explorer facelift, adding a new rear wiper with I think a bigger blade (think new rear glass was a bit larger, as the old setup was mostly carryover from the original).
My 1953 Willys CJ3B has an engine vacuum operated wiper on the driver side and a passenger operated one on the passenger side. The driver one stops moving at anything above about 1/8 throttle. Want to wipe the windshield while maintaining speed? Nope!
Note that the CJ3B should have an aux vacuum pump as part of the fuel pump assembly for running the wipers, but a previous owner did some things that prevent the larger fuel/vacuum pump assembly from fitting.
You forgot Toyota Cressida estate (X70, 1984–1997) with two wipers on the rear windscreen.
https://roadsiderambler.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/P2198700.jpg
Yup and the NA spec Camry also had the same thing.
Never realized that opposing wipers are uncommon. Two out of my three cars had this setup, and the one missing was an old VW bus.
I currently own a minivan, and the front end is just this huge glass expansion. I know the wipers do a good job because the only spot they miss looks like a widow’s peak on the top of the glass, and I have to climb on the roof to reach it when washing the car 🙂
In high school (mid-late 90s), a friend had a Mercedes E Class. One day he got to drive it to school, and he showed me the single most amazing wiper setup I’ve ever seen — emphasis on single!
https://youtu.be/KHtEAMwcWI4
A single wiper, pivoting from the center of the cowl, with a mechanism that causes it to extend and retract twice as it rotates through a full 180-degree sweep, such that it would reach out towards the upper corners, essentially clearing a nearly perfect rounded rectangle on each pass.
The mechanism made it make this weird “thumpathumpathumpathumpa” sound as it swept. I can imagine the sound getting annoying if you’re doing a long drive in the rain, but I’m guessing the sound insulation on that car was such that it’d be much less obnoxious when heard from inside!
That was a crazy idea from Mercedes. The German magazin “Auto Motor und Sport” claimed that this was a better safety feature than ABS (honestly!). My ’98 CLK has this single wiper and it is heavy: You can feel how it shakes the car when not driving.
Came here for this. My mom had an early-90s 190E with the single blade. Very cool. The un-swept area below the blade in the center of the screen looked like boobs to my pre-teen brain.
The fact the monoblade didn’t make it into this article, is ridiculous. My father had an E-Class when I was a kid, and the difference in the shapes of the un-swept areas on the outer perimeter and inner perimeter was mind blowing to me. It was a feat of engineering and almost incomprehensible how it worked to me. I loved it.
There’s only so much that I can include! Believe me, the monoblade deserves all of its recognition. I’ll craft a part 2 just for you, BolognaBurrito.
I feel like there was plenty space to include the monoblade (Merc/Jag).
Not quite as wild as the monopod but BMW has used wipers that put the arms on a double hinged linkage rather than a single pivot. The motion would flatten the top of the arc, allowing the cars to use larger wiper blades. https://youtu.be/h0G010aFsh4
If Bobby McGee and Janis Joplin had been riding in an E Class, the windshield wiper slapping time could have offered up a whole different catalog of music to sing.
I bought a cheap ’93 300E 2.8 a number of years ago. I think that wiper blade was my favorite included feature – it was just so unexpected. As someone who’s quite easily entertained, I had to consciously make sure I was paying attention to the road the first few times I used it.
Wiper regulations are at https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/571.104
The key one is that a minimum of 80% of the windshield has to be wiped. Non-standard wiper arrangements usually result from unusual windshield shapes. The FJ and MGB, for example, are relatively short for their width.
Always loved the wipers on the typically bonkers trucks by designer Luigi Colani:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/LuigiColani-DesignTrucks.jpg
http://www.bubblemania.fr/en/spitzer-mercedes-colani/
Three blades, rotating around a center hub like a fan.
That article was fascinating thank you!
Or school buses. Those never synced up….
I clicked on the article thinking i was going to learn about the actual wiper blades themselves. Could we get an article on the outside and cons of bargain 8 dollar blades vs 20+dollar Bosch’s vs my personal favorite the Kimblade?
The Kimblade comes with a ceramic window treatment that is very good. It also comes with replaceable wiper edges, so you don’t have to throw away the metal holder. 10/10 would recommend.
Stay tuned…
I would love to see some discussion of the rubber and various treatments used by different manufacturers, but I’ve found that the holder can make a big difference too. The various plastic swoops and other aerodynamic features on some blade holders can turn them into little airfoils when installed against a near vertical windshield (on a Wrangler, for example); the right combination of highway speed and wind can cause the blades to lift away from the glass. In those cases, you’re pretty much stuck with the cheap, older-style metal holders, unless you’re dealing with a brand like you’ve described.
My ’88 LTD Crown Vic parks the wipers beneath the trailing edge of the hood. In winter, I use a long piece of foam pipe insulation to keep snow/ice out of there. Also, they fit so close to the hood that only Bosch Micro Edge blades will fit. Nobody else makes a bayonet mount without an adapter these days.
Also, the left arm has that cool little auxiliary arm that changes the blade angle mid-sweep so at its full travel the blade aligns with the edge of the windshield.
Hurry up with that edit button!
Furthermore, our Mazda CX-5 uses some kind of semi-proprietary pushbutton arrangement to attach the bade to the arm. The pushbutton adapters that come with new wipers don’t fit. There are at least 6 ways to attach a wiper blade, and you had to invent another one…. why?
My 1995 Grand Prix had a wiper set-up similar to the Escape’s and would eventually leave a Widow’s peak of schmutz at the top of the windshield.
This set-up also had the benefit of giving my Aunt Phyllis a headache, so I never had to have her sit shotgun in my car.
i remember one of my friends had a car where it looked like the right wiper would start its upward arc only to have the larger left wiper beat it into submission. Can’t remember what car that was though.
I have a ’66 t-bird the wipers of which are doubly-noteworthy. They go in opposition, sure, which is a thing I always found cool for some reason (probably because it’s less common). But it’s the way they’re powered that makes them unusual. Not electric, like most, or vacuum operated, like some — no, they’re driven off the power steering pump. A line runs from the power steering pump, through the firewall, to a hydraulic motor, and back to the steering pump. This bit of weirdness allows the speed to be continuously variable since it’s full analog. So, you can set them so they slowly creep back and forth across the windshield. Not at all useful, but odd and fun. Almost like using the spare tire pressure to run the washers on a Beetle.