heated wipers & snowfall

If there's snow falling will using the heated wipers keep snow from building up on and underneath the wipers? I only noticed them after getting back from my first ski/board trip with the car. While it was snowing the wipers were TERRIBLE! Snow would build up all over them within a minute or two, including underneath'em between them and the windshield. We had to stop, get out, and clean off the wipers over and over.

 

Btw, to be clear I don't expect the heated wipers to remove large amounts snow that's already collected. I'm just wondering if I turn the wiper heating on and then clean off the wipers will they stay usable?

It's been snowing at my workplace quite a bit. What I do is set the wipers on intermitten at a slow speed so that way the wiper has some time to heat up between strokes. Seems to work.

Awesome!

I tried mine in a recent light snowfall.....they didn't work at all......major build-up in a few minutes Got home and tried it in the driveway to see what I did wrong.....still no joy...Maybe the snow here is too wet??

It was barely below freezing and the snow I was driving through was pretty wet too. That's not a good sign...

i used to jack my moms forrester to go to tahoe, i found the only good way of keeping the windsheild snow/ice free was to absolutely blast the defrost on it with the wiper heaters going and the wipers on a fairly slow intermittant setting.

 

works great in light snowfall and you can crack the window if you dont like going thermonuclear inside, but it wont work in heavey snow

you're really need to use the heaters when the window has iced up up overnight. Thier have been times when the wipers are froze stuck - and I have needed the heaters to unstick them. (rather than getting out of the car and forcing them up)

 

I cant see how they would put out enough heat to fight any accumulation of snow buildup.

Buy winter wipers(eg w/jackets over the structure), problem solved.

Wet sticky snow will always cause a problem with build-up even with the wiper-heater on. Like others have said, you really need to blast the defroster while using the wiper-heater to see any benefits. We didn't get much snow in the N.east this year but for the times we did, the defroster/wiper-heater combo worked great for me.

it's spring..worry about it next year

Fast wiper speeds don't work well with snow

It might be spring, but it snowed yesterday in California at my work place at 2700 feet.

I typically simply make sure that my windshield is heated well - if it's really coming down, I've got the defroster "on" almost constantly.

 

Usually, this means that drier, flakier snow (which tends to blow completely "over" the top of the car, due to aerodynamics) will melt and typically wind-dry under most driving conditions. Heavier, wetter snow will melt - then necessitating either wiper action (usually, under such conditions, I'm not driving fast enough that the beaded water droplets will aero-carry).

 

I only use the windshield/wiper defroster/de-icer when I actually worry about FREEZING precip.

They are only really to defrost the wipers before using them, they don't have enough power to heat the blades between strokes.

 

Driving in freezing rain is a nightmare, I've done it a couple of times and end up having to have the AC on full blast to keep a small patch clear, and the windows open to keep the cabin temp down. That plus stopping every 30 minutes to break the ice build up on the car, frightening.

I had my defroster on most of the time. I know some snow buildup is normal but this seemed waaay excessive. My last two cars never had snow pile up on the wipers anywhere close to as quickly as it did on my LGT last weekend. The snow was pretty wet and quite a bit of it was falling, but I drove through my share of wet snow back east too.

 

Ah well, new wipers it is. Any recommendations?

Driving in freezing rain is a nightmare, I've done it a couple of times and end up having to have the AC on full blast to keep a small patch clear, and the windows open to keep the cabin temp down. That plus stopping every 30 minutes to break the ice build up on the car, frightening.

 

Hey bro,

 

I've honestly found that the RainX "pink"/Winter formula fluid that we have here in the States to work really, really well at de-icing, even "on-the-go."

 

It produces one hell of a wicked "film," but works very well!

I had my defroster on most of the time. I know some snow buildup is normal but this seemed waaay excessive. My last two cars never had snow pile up on the wipers anywhere close to as quickly as it did on my LGT last weekend. The snow was pretty wet and quite a bit of it was falling, but I drove through my share of wet snow back east too.

 

Ah well, new wipers it is. Any recommendations?

 

I like PIAA Supersilicones (basically automatic Rain-X everytime you wipe) or Bosch Micro Edge Excels. Can't go wrong with either! Also as it may have been said before the Windshield wiper de-icers are referred to de-icers for their one purpose... De-icing. Its worse to have wipers that don't wipe at all because they are frozen than to have some snow on them in most circumstances, I don't feel they are "hot" enough to melt snow.

I know the heated wipers keeping snow off was a longshot. I just ordered some Valeo wipers from Amazon. I'll see how they do next weekend.

I'm at South Lake Tahoe right now and there's a pretty big snow storm. Drove the Honda Pilot up here because of the snowboard, food, people, and luggage that I/we needed to carry. Oh how I miss my LGT. Although the Pilot did well on unplowed back roads, I still wish I was driving the LGT. I really wanted to try the side mirror defrosters and the windshield wiper defroster.

is heated wipers only on gt and limited models?

Yeah, looks like only Limiteds. I dunno about the 05 non-limited GTs, but normal and SE 2.5i's definately don't have'em. I would guess that the non-limited GTs don't either.

 

Same with heated side mirrors.

 

Just remember to put your wipers up before it snows and they should be fine. And you can always scrape ice off your side view mirrors yourself, though I'll be the first to admit that it's annoying and heated side mirrors are a very nice convenience.

I actually fournd with the stock crappy ass wipers if you let the wipers sit on the heater for a little bit using interm. or just using mist when you need it they tend to streak less..

i always blast the defrost and fire up the deicers. seems to work on my snowboarding trips.

Bosch Icons are my favorite, plus the rebate kicks a*& and the frameless design really clears the windshield without streaking

Bosch Icons are my favorite, plus the rebate kicks a*& and the frameless design really clears the windshield without streaking

 

I'm interested in the icons myself... did u have to specify the wiper arm linkage, i'm looking at it on amazon, it doesn't really say anything about that... anyone want to give me some clarification...?