Wipers Don't Sweep All The Way To Pillar On Drivers Side

[sasquartch]

I have a 2005 TDi

 

I noticed recently that the wiper seems to stop quite a bit short of the A pillar.

 

Not sure how long it's been like this as I rarely drive the car (wife's)

 

Looking on here it seems common that the linkage seizes up so I have removed this and greased everything up, all moves freely and no worn bushes I can see, all looks good.

 

No difference, I am sure the wiper arms are correctly aligned and can't detect any play anywhere in the linkage or spindles.

 

Any ideas ? The TIS doesn't have anything about this

 

Thanks

[Dan54]

Had exactly the same problem on mine the other day,greased and sprayed etc-no difference,so moved the offending wiper just slightly so it sits about 5mm more up the windscreen-problem solved! (takes a bit of trial and error to get right).

Edited August 31, 2013 by Dan54

[asp383]

i have the same problem with mine, they only go right over if driving at speed with heavy rain.

 

with mine, it's the linkage, the space the pin the r/h wiper is in to hold it central in the linkage had broken up & is missing, it seems to be a common problem, as all the galaxy, sharan & alhambra cars in the local scrap yard are missing their whole linkage. i keep meaning to get round to looking to see if i have any washers or something else i can use to locate the pin in the linkage, rather than buying new, but as it looks like i only have up to 1 year left with it (got to get a replacement before the mot next august), i may not bother, it's been fine the last 2 years i've owned it & the couple of years it's been in the family before that & not been mentioned on the mot.

 

only problem, aprart from not always clearing enough of the screen is, if the windscreen isn't wet enough, the r/h blade can drag & snag with the l/h blade, messing up the end of the r/h blade, although i can usually traighten it out enough to clear the rain, i've only had to swap sides once & replace once

[SilverBeast]

Mine did the same (not sweeping to the pillar on the drivers side) when the spindles were starting to seize up.

 

Did you strip the mechanism and remove the spindles in order to grease (as in the Frequently Asked Questions) or just spray/grease what you could see?

 

If you didn't strip then it is likely to be seized spindles.  Even with it just missing the sweep by a couple of inches on the drivers side I needed a lot of leverage to turn the spindles when I took mine apart even though the motor still managed most of the sweep.

[sasquartch]

Thanks for the update.

 

No I did not dismantle the spindles.

 

I just greased the other joints in the linkage and checked the motor moved freely.

 

I think you are right about the drivers side spindle, it definitely runs slightly warm so although it's not seized it probably needs stripping and greasing as you suggest.

 

Will have to take the motor / linkage out for a second time I guess :-(

[gizmo.john]

its a ten minute job if you leave it in place and just take the wiper arm of and take c clip of, wd40 and with the wipers switched on high speed put pressure on the top of the linkage and spray wd40 at same time, once the spindle drops out you can grease it put it back together job done ten minutes.

[SilverBeast]

You probably need to clean out the bores where the spindles fit there appears to be two bearing surfaces, one at the top and one at the bottom of the bore, with a gap between them. My gap was full of gunge on both sides. I personally would use the advice above to remove the spindles as I needed a couple of 14" adjustable spanners in order to turn the drivers spindle, even with the rest of the linkage disconnected. I' d then remove the mechanism to clean and grease it properly.