Headlight Wipers are Sexy

[Spiny Norman]

Sod all these neatly parked wipers. This is what Autoshite headlamp wipers are all about...

 

[Pete-M]

I suspect the 604 should have headlamp wipers but doesn't. It does have the washers (which work) and little metal bits hanging from the headlamp edges that look like wipers should sit on 'em. I'll have to rectify this somehow.

 

Jag and Jeep have neither. I regularly curse the lack of headlamp wipers on the Jeep as it seems to have shite-magnets instead of headlamp lenses.

 

BMW has headlamp washers, which work.

 

Trying desperately to find headlamp washers for the Escort. They were an option. Hideous too.

[RichL]

If you find an S/V70 with one not working it will probably stay that way, the motors were over £90 quid each about 5 years ago. Probably about £120 now. Never seen the point of the high pressure jets though, on the later S60/V70 it just covers the bumper and bonnet in washer fluid...

[Skizzer]

Somewhere I've got a Renault brochure from 1980 that shows headlamp wipers on a 30TX - four round headlamps so four curved wipers. Only trouble is the wipers are rather obviously drawn on afterwards by the UK marketing people. I'll dig the brochure out at some point and post up some scans (a la Trigger), it's full of yellow R5s with all the Boutique options and other such p0rn.

[barefoot]

I've never had a car with you actual wipers, my Audi 200T had headlamp washers which emptied their (dedicated) reservoir at an alarming rate.

Swapped it for the 944 which just has one massive reservoir for all washers which I thought was a bonus until it developed a quality

voluminous leak. At which point in its life it was swapped for a standard fellow & the headlamp jet was tied off in an umbilical fashion.

 

If I win the lotto, this is something that I may attend to,

 

Otherwise, not the end of the fucking world eh?

[alfetta]

problem is they invariably use the same little Bosch motors which pack up after a while. MInd you on most of my saabs they worked OK....

 

The best system was the old 96 v4's and early saab 99's - one big motor using a rod and pulley system - and cleaned the whole lamp

[HMC]

Of the half dozen or so old shape saab 900s I've had only a couple had functioning headlamp wipers.

 

Mercedes had it as an option on most of their range in the 80s and 90s. In their usual miserly apporoach to options, the painted body was included in the price, but not much else! It came as standard on the more expensive models, but you could also have a base w124 with keep fit windows all round, no radio but headlamp wash wipe if you ticked the right boxes.

 

My w126 420se had it as standard, and 20 years on they still wash, and still wipe. Usefull in the crappy weather on our drive to Germany yesterday.

 

I had a ratty series III xj12 once and seem to remember it had headlamp wipers on the outer lamps, but they didnt work. Neither did most of the rest of the car, to be honest!

[wuvvum]

Most of the Saabs I've had have had one working headlamp wiper. I think only one (out of the 20-odd Saabs I've owned) has had both functioning. I don't have anything in the fleet at the moment with headlamp wipers unfortunately, although the SVX has washers, which work but don't seem to make the headlights any less shit.

[Lankytim]

Those little wipers look cool, but are actually quite shit. On a couple of Volvo i've had the blade has got trapped under the headlight, broken off and then the arm has scored the headlamp glass. I've taken the arms off my current 240. I may fix them properly, or just remove the motors and bin them.

 

They also frequently freeze to the headlamp in cold weather and burn the motor out or strip the splines from the spindle, causing the wiper arm to flop about or sometimes it can cause the other end of the spindle to slip on the gear inside the motor, causing the wiper to try and clean the bumper/grille or park upide down e.t.c.

 

They do look nice when they work though!

[inconsistant]

 

 

Based on what I've seen so far on this thread I'd like to lay claim to ownership of the most recent car to have headlamp wipers. V40 Sept 2003. Beat me!

[Richard]

Headlight wipers on plastic lenses?

[inconsistant]

CLEAN plastic lenses!

[Lanciaman]

My 1988 Lancia Thema had these and they worked. Other than they started to work like a syphon so if you scooshed to use the headlamp wipers the water would keep going until it drained the reservoir. Useful. Equally useful was the lancia dealer said the bit I needed to fix it didn't exist.. .. photo not of mine..

[Tamworthbay]

Have them but the wiring isn’t presently attached, didn’t park or something. Not sure whether I can be bothered sorting them if I am honest.

[JeeExEll]

 

There's a pic somewhere of a Scandinavian Austin Allegro with it's tiny rectangular headlamps and dinky little wipers. HC Vivas too. And Mk1 Granadas.

[JeeExEll]

Manta Berlinetta, car of teh future in 1978.

Looks quite smiley with chrome bumpers, then someone presses wash-wipe and makes it cry.

[JeeExEll]

Kwality, not just a gimmick for reps on motorways.

Did SAABs preheat the water / solution?

[JeeExEll]

I've seen a few Alpines with these fitted but have never seen any in action.

Probably all broken by February 1981.

[Mr Bump]

You can just about see them on this picture

[Richard]

Kwality, not just a gimmick for reps on motorways.

Did SAABs preheat the water / solution?

 

The Turbo got individual motors for some reason, even though it had the same lights and no intercooler. Maybe the shared motor restricted the airflow through the radiator too much for the turbo engine.

 

As far as I'm aware the washers weren't heated.

[JeeExEll]

Not available in the UK.

[warninglight]

 

Based on what I've seen so far on this thread I'd like to lay claim to ownership of the most recent car to have headlamp wipers. V40 Sept 2003. Beat me!

 

Mine was a 53 plate admittedly, but they came on these until I think 2005...

 

Also on the Volvo theme, the C70 was the old platform up to 2005, and kept the headlamp wipers til then.

[xtriple]

XJ-S has wipers on the headlamps. If they work, I will be utterly fucking amazed!

[MiniMinorMk3]

The only car that I've had with wipers on the lamps was one of these.

When ever I used them the one way valve would stick open and drain the washer bottle.

 

The daftest ones have to be the brushes on the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow II