Wipers & Washers

Replacing components on your vehicle when they break can be a pain, but it becomes more and more painful when you are using the wrong parts. So CARiD has a wide range of different components for any vehicle you have, so you can get it back on the road without having to worry about whether you will be doing the same job again in a few weeks because you used the wrong component.

The importance of your windshield wipers and washers is easy to see when you simply consider what happened the last time you drove in the rain. Rather than pull over and wait for the windshield to dry, you simply turned the wipers on and allowed them to keep the windshield free of water so you could see where you were going. Rather than pull over and wash the windshield off, let the wipers do this job.

To do this, washers and wipers use a number of parts. The wipers use a motor and worm gear inside the wiper motor, which usually sits inside the hood, and these power the blades of the wipers so they move across the windshield at the right speed. The blades use rubber inserts to efficiently move the water without scratching your windshield. The washers are a little more simple, because they use a pump to move the water from the container under the hood, and then it is shot out onto the windshield through small nozzles.

These parts need to be working well to keep your windshield clean and free of water, but things can go wrong. For instance, the switch inside your car can break after a certain number of uses, or wires can fail to transfer the signal. The motor, worm gear and blades are under stress and can wear out or even break, and this can often happen if you own the vehicle long enough. The piping that moves the water to your washers can crack or break, and the washer nozzles can become clogged or even break completely.

To identify whether these problems have occurred, there are a few symptoms you can look out for. Of course, the obvious one is that nothing happens when you turn them on, and it is a sign of wiring or switch problems. If the wiper motors are loud when you use them, it can be a sign of a problem with the motor or gear, and if they screech across the windshield you can usually assume it is time to replace the blades and rubber inserts. If you try to put water onto the screen and discover the water goes everywhere but the windshield, the washer nozzles are due for replacement or repair.