Modern wiper install

[sawood12]

Well I finally got round to fitting the VW Lupo wiper arm and blade today. I've only got one as I wasn't sure if it would fit. The whole idea was that I thought the wipers stood off from the windscreen surface quite alot. One thing i've noticed about these new modern flat blade wipers is that the wiper arm is paralell to the wiper blade rather than over the top, which I thing gives a much lower profile and I hope will lead to less wind noise and better performance of the wiper at speed.

The wipers on our cars are both the same and after much inspection of modern cars wipers I thought the VW lupo GTi drivers arm (not the normal Lupo as they have conventional wipers) was the closest. In actual fact they are very close but are about half an inch longer than the 944 wiper, but there is plenty of clearance on the windscreen.

So I took a chance and bought one arm and wiper blade and today finally got round to fitting to the passenger side. I didn't fit to the drivers as the extra half inch may have caused the blades to clash in use.

The arm fitted straight on no problems at all. The only problem i had was that due to the extra length and the thicker tip of the new style blade the corner of the bonnet clashes with the blade tip when you open the bonnet. This meant I had to fit the arm at a bit of an angle to provide clearance. This is a bit of a shame as I wanted to fit the arm as close to the bottom of the screen as possible such that the arms tucked under the bonner lip as much as possible. I can probably still fitn the arm like this but it would mean the bonnet corner will open above the wiper arm rather than below.

Other than that the install is totally successfull and is a much improved look over the original arms. Once I get the drivers side arm bought and installed it will look even better. Please see the before and after shots from inside of the car that show the newer blade has a much lower profile than the original.

 

[sawood12]

Now for the after. Unfortunately it is from the drivers side but hopefully it shows the effect just as well:-

 

[morris944s2john]

I personally don't like the look of those flat modern wiper blades- they look flat, boring and ugly- like modern cars as a whole in fact. IMHO, the the original Porsche wiper arms look nicer, like a piece of engineering.

 

[jackregan]

ORIGINAL: morris944s2john

I personally don't like the look of those flat modern wiper blades- they look flat, boring and ugly- like modern cars as a whole in fact. IMHO, the the original Porsche wiper arms look nicer, like a piece of engineering.

I like the idea, I am not sure how a wiper blade can look boring! (or interesting for that matter)

Where these what you fitted?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Porsche-968-944-928-924-Retro-Fit-Flexi-Wiper-Blades_W0QQitemZ140131139953QQihZ004QQcategoryZ10408QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247

 

[sawood12]

No, that is what I have fitted on the drivers side which fits onto the standard 944 arm. I wouldn't recommend those over standard wiper arms. What I have done with the passenger side is to replace the arm completely with a VW Lupo GTi drivers arm and blade. What the photo shows is that the arm is paralell to the blade and hugs the contour of the windscreen much more closely. The standard arm sticks up over the top of the blade a good half an inch or so taller than the lupo setup. This means the wiper blade is much more in the airflow coming off the bonnet causing noise and reducing the wipers perfomance at speed. The whole idea was to get a much lower profile wiper setup that tucks under the line of the bonnet. I think with a bit of playing around the Lupo arms and blades will give me that. Even though the blade itself is quite bulky it the whole setup is much much lower profile that the standard setup and i'm confident will work much better at speed as a result.

I've never really considered wipers to be an asthetic part of any car - they are a necessary evil. I think in the flesh the Lupo setup will look much better than stock though. The arm is much sleeker, espeicially at the hinged end.

 

[JamesO]

That looks like a good upgrade to me. The bosch wipers on mine either seem to sit too high or too low and dont hug the screen that well.
BTW nearly got the transaxle fitted cheers. Picked up a prolapsed disc so car work on the backburner

 

[jackregan]

scott, do they clear the screen better, and do they judder at all?

I am liking this idea!

 

[George Elliott]

Jack, Scott,
I got some similar to the e-bay ones shown (seller I bought from was aj4151 - no connection to me).
They are much better than standard although I prefer the standard appearance. They do not judder after about 15 minutes of use. Before that they squeek slightly. They work brilliantly well above 60mph.
They are easy to fit.
George

944t
964

 

[sawood12]

I found the ebay ones to be fine generally but I did have an annoying problem. In the drivers side the wiper blade caused an arcing smear of very thin water right in my field of view. I swapped the blades over but still had the same problem. Rainex solved the problem as I rarely used my wipers at all now - especially at speed. It really is good stuff!!

The new wiper is still only installed on the passenger side and though i've not used it in anger, though it seems to work very well when I use the windscreen washers - certainly no juddering. The spring on the arm seems to be much much stronger than the old one - but this could be due to the spring weakening over time. From the inside the whole wiper arm looks very low profile as the wiper arm dissapears behind the wiper blade. The highest point off the windscreen of the whole thing is now the thickest part of the wiper blade. The arm really does hug the windscreen very closely.

One slight concern, at the very root of the arm there is only very very small clearance of the arm against the screen. It doesn't touch at any point of it's operating arc. I think I wont have the same problem on the drivers side as the curvature of the windscreen is falling away from the wiper as it moves through its arc therefore increasing the gap. I've not done a test fit of the passenger arm on the drivers side as I want to minimise the removals and refits of the arm to keep the spline as tight as possible.

Sightly disspointed I couldn't position the arm lower down to the bottom of the windscreen due to the corner of the bonnet fouling with the tip of the wiper blade. Today I looked to lowering the blade so that when the bonnet was open it would be below the tip of the bonnet rather than above it, however the problem with this would be that as you opened the bonnet it would foul with the blade. Not to worry, there should be nothing stopping the drivers side one from being installed paralell to the bottom of the windscreen and tucking under the bonnet line nicely.

On balance it is an expensive mod (£80 in total) so clearly not worth it. I happen to like little touches like this though. I've always thought the standard wipers stick up a stupid amount and just look daft and this certainly does solve this asthetic blunder from Porsche. I didn't really have a major problem with the operation of the standard system from a rain clearing standpoint, but did think the wipers noisy due to aerodynamic buffetting and rubbish at speeds over 90mph (on trackdays of course!!) - again, probably due to the sheer aerodynamic force acting on the blade and arm. Hopefully with the new system being much more aerodynamic these issues should be improved. Also the new wiper does look the dogs danglies next to the old one. It just looks more modern and sleeker. Never thought i'd get excited about wipers at all. I'll post some pics once I get the drivers side one sorted out.

James - Sorry to hear about your back. Hope it wasn't from lugging that gearbox about!! Thanks for the beer - it went down very well! I think all Porsche parts should be traded with alcoholic products. Makes life far more enjoyable[]