Ibiza windscreen wipers

[Gman77]

Hi I bought a nice white Ibiza Toca 14 plate a few months ago. One issue nobody has mentioned at all about this car is that on washing the car I pull up the passenger windscreen wiper ok but the drivers side does not come up properly as it scrapes on to the bonnet. I have now taken the paint off the top part when lifting the wiper. Is this an issue anyone else has?

 

[RUM4MO]

Yes, it has been well reported as I found out! Still to sort the paint on my daughter's white Ibiza, got paint though! I think that if you have a look in the operators manual, it tells you to move the wipers up to the service position before trying to lift them, I've forgotten how that is done, have a look and you will find out. This does not excuse a very stupid design error though as one thing owners feel the need to do is to lift the wipers up quite a few times in the life of a car, making a proper job of designing the linkage/arms would have avoided this issue.

Edit:- welcome to the forum!

 

[BJM]

Noted for when I get mine - although habit will probably end up with me losing the paint off the bonnet. I'll be checking that part very closely when I pick it up in case the valeters have done the same!

 

[ALK88]

I agree the wiper service mode seems a bit OTT when they could have just designed it properly in the first place!

For those who want to know you have to turn the key so that the electrics are on and then turn the key back but don't take it out, then flick and hold the wiper stalk down (as if to do one wipe) and then the wipers will move half way across the windscreen.

Hope this helps

 

[Pyrres]

I agree the wiper service mode seems a bit OTT when they could have just designed it properly in the first place!

For those who want to know you have to turn the key so that the electrics are on and then turn the key back but don't take it out, then flick and hold the wiper stalk down (as if to do one wipe) and then the wipers will move half way across the windscreen.

Hope this helps

Oh come on... Think about the reason behind it. Aerodynamics are better when wipers are normally under the bonnet. And the service position is well known thing and in the manual. Cupra is my second or third car that has it. Only annoying thing is that ice might get stuck with wipers if you forget to rise them.

 

[RichardE0]

Oh come on... Think about the reason behind it. Aerodynamics are better when wipers are normally under the bonnet. And the service position is well known thing and in the manual. Cupra is my second or third car that has it. Only annoying thing is that ice might get stuck with wipers if you forget to rise them.

Agreed... Rather have them tucked out the way. Used to have a old corsa, nothing more annoying than getting some speed up and having the wind push the wipers half way up the screen

 

[ALK88]

Oh come on... Think about the reason behind it. Aerodynamics are better when wipers are normally under the bonnet. And the service position is well known thing and in the manual. Cupra is my second or third car that has it. Only annoying thing is that ice might get stuck with wipers if you forget to rise them.

I can appreciate what you mean by that but I dont think you are going to see massive aerodynamic gains from this. Surely making the wipers as user friendly for a mass market should be of higher priority than aero or at least find a better compromise of the two? Yes it is well known on the forums but when someone has to lift the wiper blades on their car it should be as simple as that, not "hold on let me get the wipers in service mode first" It will only annoy people when they damage the paint work on their car resulting in more complaints to Seat. It would be interesting to know what other cars have the wiper service mode feature?

Agreed... Rather have them tucked out the way. Used to have a old corsa, nothing more annoying than getting some speed up and having the wind push the wipers half way up the screen

I can't say i've ever experienced anything that bad in my previous cars! (a Punto and MK4 Ibiza)

 

[Pyrres]

I can appreciate what you mean by that but I dont think you are going to see massive aerodynamic gains from this. Surely making the wipers as user friendly for a mass market should be of higher priority than aero or at least find a better compromise of the two? Yes it is well known on the forums but when someone has to lift the wiper blades on their car it should be as simple as that, not "hold on let me get the wipers in service mode first" It will only annoy people when they damage the paint work on their car resulting in more complaints to Seat. It would be interesting to know what other cars have the wiper service mode feature?



I can't say i've ever experienced anything that bad in my previous cars! (a Punto and MK4 Ibiza)

Well actually the aerodynamic gains are surprisingly big. Why have the blades create dragn when normally you dont use them. Other cars include other vag models like Octavia, ifbI remember correctly newer Golfs and Passats, some Fords have them etc. Its now quite normal thing to have.

 

[Biker]

The Mk3 Leon has exactly the same system and lets be fair, it's not exactly hard to work!

Best advice, READ THE MANUAL! It's there for a reason.........

 

[nightflight]

Best advice, READ THE MANUAL! It's there for a reason.........

QFT.

It might be a bid 'sad' but the first thing I do when I get anything with a manual is read the bloody thing. It's amazing how many little hints tips, hidden features etc and ways to make your life easier are hidden within the pages.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no technodunce, I can generally get someones microwave to heat some food up without reading the book for example, but if you're going to be living with something for an extended period I don't get why people don't want to get the most out of it.

 

[Wee-nemo]

On a slightly different note, has anyone else found hat the wipers never seem to do that good a job of wiping fully? I'm always left with a smear of tiny droplets across the whole of the swept area during heavy rainfall, I've cleaned and scrubbed and polished the screen and replaced the blades to no avail, I'm starting to think the tensioning springs may not be set strongly enough for the blades to make good contact with the screen.

 

[Pyrres]

On a slightly different note, has anyone else found hat the wipers never seem to do that good a job of wiping fully? I'm always left with a smear of tiny droplets across the whole of the swept area during heavy rainfall, I've cleaned and scrubbed and polished the screen and replaced the blades to no avail, I'm starting to think the tensioning springs may not be set strongly enough for the blades to make good contact with the screen.

No problem with mine. And even the auto wipers and lights work properly when in rain. Lets see how they do in Finnish winter in the snow.

 

[Wee-nemo]

Auto wipers and lights haven't been a problem here either, although it did take getting used to manually adjusting the dial for the foglights - I suggest trying it BEFORE you run into a fog bank and can't see anything - after running a car with stalk mounted light switches.

I don't know if something has got onto the windscreen to reduce the effectiveness of the blades but surely all the cleaning and polishing compounds I've tried would have removed any contaminants by now?

 

[BJM]

You don't happen to wash the car at a jet wash do you? I found this can make the windscreen seem greasy - probably to do with the detergents usually having some kind of wax in them.

 

[Wee-nemo]

I know what you mean, the lances at some are combined water and 'wax' solution which sometimes leaks into the water stream even though it's not selected. I used them ages ago on previous cars, but only ever hand wash the car now because I know what damage the commercial car wash does to paintwork. Unless the dealer applied something to the screen before I bought it then I don't know why its doing this. I told them not to apply that lifeshine crap or wash it, but I did buy it ex-demo so who knows how they were caring for it before I bought it. I've applied a glass coat to the paintwork since buying it which seems to have stopped wash swirling and stone chips.

 

[BJM]

Have you tried Bar Keepers Friend? Never tried it personally right enough.

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=199453

 

[Wee-nemo]

Tried both the powder and the cream and Ceriglass, which is a glass cutting polish with Cerium Oxide (Jewellers Rouge) in the formula.

 

[BJM]

Hmm. £70 windscreen excess!

I'm hoping mine will be fine when I eventually get it. Can't wait.

 

[Wee-nemo]

Haha hoping it doesn't come to that, had to do the same for a windscreen on my last car after the wiper rubber parted while on a motorway in heavy rain, scratched the screen to hell by the time I got off at the next junction :/

 

[RUM4MO]

Gman77, I did sort of warn you about raising this point! Anyway, think back too far - but here goes, my old trusty VX Cav GSI 4X4 had this issue with its front wipers - what a pain I thought (no "service position option in that car"), then I spotted that later cars had modified wiper arms, I bought the new parts and fitted them, problem vanished! Now as far as claims of improved aerodynamics being the reason, well in theory that will be true, but Seat, in line with many other car makers, could have achieved acceptable "CD" figures without needing to drop the wipers "out of use position" - just have a look at the blunt nose on the Ibiza, not exactly well designed for streamlining, more for looks and fashion - same as Audi in fact! I'm old enough to remember that the Montego (company managers had them so were also pool cars) had this "amazing" function that when the wipers were on intermittant, they had a raised parking position, when off they disappeared down below view, now who would have thought that BL would have thought of that, unfortunately they had quite a lot of good ideas built into totally crap cars!