Front wiper blades

[NovaResource]

My Vibe came with the passenger side wiper blade a little higher than the drivers side. The driver side arm stops in the painted area at the bottom of the windshield but the end of the passenger side blade is above that painted area and can be seen from inside the car.Anybody elses Vibe that way?Well, I fixed mine today. There is a small cap on the wiper arm where it pivots. If you remove that cap there is a 14mm nut that holds the wiper arm on. I removed the nut and repositioned the wiper arm down slightly until it was level with the driver side arm and below the painted line on the windshield. It looks much better now.

[NSimkins]

Mine is the same way.Do you think there is a purpose for the wiper to be angled this way? I don't know if it is for better water redirection, or nothing at all.I really haven't had the chance to use my wipers yet, so I don't know how they travel on the window and see if modifying the position will affect proper wiper operations.I may hold off a little while before adjusting the wiper to see how things go. Let me know if you notice any differences, etc.

[OlDood]

I just stuck my head out in the garage and looked at mine - you're right: the left one (driver's side) is exactly horizontal (for all practical purposes); the right one (passenger's side) is at 25 degrees above horizontal. Do ya s'pose it might be for a reason?

[NSimkins]

quote:Do ya s'pose it might be for a reason?When the wiper is activated (the passenger side wiper in particular), the water is obviously pushed from the passenger side bottom of the windshield up towards the top near middle (it's vertical now) for the drivers-side wiper to collect and push the water towards the bottom.My guess is it is angled so when it does wipe up the windshield, most of the water does not just flow right over the end tip of the wiper, thus making it somewhat useless or less effective. This will keep the water against the wiper through the entire wipe up.

[NovaResource]

It's not really angled to push the water because what I changed was just where the blade parks, not the angle of the wiper itself. It just starts lower and doesn't go as far across the windshield. It's not a big deal because it still goes well past 90-degrees straight up and well into the driver side range of motion. I had this same problem on my 2002 Voyager. The driver side wiper blade was a few degrees up from level when the wipers were parked. It's not a big deal because they worked fine but not being symetrical annoyed me.Yes, I am (removed) about that kinda stuff.

[NSimkins]

Ohh, okay, I thought you just changed the actual wiper.

[NovaResource]

I went out and looked at the 2 wiper arms (not the blades) and the 2 arms are different. The passenger arm does angle the blade slightly up. What the factory did was mount the 2 arms the same but the different passenger side arm just places the wiper blade slightly higher. Looking at the arms after my "fix" the passenger side arm is now lower than the driver side (when parked) but the blades are now even. I guess it's just a matter of taste. Personally, I like the blades even and unseen in the passenger compartment instead of the arms being even.Six of one, half a dozen of the other.