I was driving down the thruway in my 08 yesterday about 60-65 mph. There was a crosswind, that I could feel. A truck passed me and left some spray on the windshield so I turned on the washers, that automatically turn on the wipers. Drivers side wiper pulled away from the windshield, probably as far out as it could go, then slammed back. Did that about 3 times............... are the springs a little weak, is this normal? Can they not withstand a crosswind?? Just curious if anyone else ever had this happen.
Doesn't sound normal to me. It never happen with my 04 nor with my 09. I suggest you have the dealer check for a weak spring. You don't have Rain-X or any other coating on the windshield do you?
It would take an incredible amount of wind to lift the blade up off the glass, with the blade surface area so small. I would guess you don't have any springs!
No rain X or anything else. I did put on winter wiper blades instead of the stock ones.................
That's why ... winter blades. They are not very effective at high speeds. I've had problems with them on other cars.
Never had a problem with winter blades on anything else................ Did have the factory blades on the Prius clog up with ice and be ineffective. That's why I bought the winter blades.
Hi Swi66, I have Bosch ICON blades on my car. No levers to clog up with ice. They are not winter blades, and also have a lower profile for better resistance to aero-chatter. You might try those. There are other brands of blades that use a metal beam spring rather than the levers like the ICONs. I did have problems with the gaps in the stock blades becoming loaded with icey deposits to the point where the levers could no longer press the blade to the windshield throughout the stroke. The Prius having a smoother junction between the windshield and hood has a thinner boundary layer, and high speed air is closer to the body of the car. On other cars with the more vertical windshield, the air makes a high pressure, low flow zone near the base of the windshield. The turbulence in this area tends to scour the gaps between the levers in the standard blades. Thus the lower profile, beam spring wipers are better for the Prius.
I think your car was just waving to another that caught its fancy. Tell it to be more discrete next time...
Thanks.........great explanation. Just struck me as weird. I'm holding off to see if it happens again, at least for the rest of the winter. The winter blades work real well so far in most normal driving, it was particular circumstances this happened, has not repeated yet.
