Wippers noise

[andrewwynn]

I've had good luck lately using rain-x brand wiper wash (orange). Just enough rain-x to act like the glass wax above. No chatter. Added bonus: no wiper needed at freeway speeds. Even the rain sensor doesn't kick in. I just need to run the wash program periodically. Rely on rain only for cleaning and chatter will return.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ricky Bobby]

I actually use a windshield fluid additive (1Z 'Nextzett' Kristall Klar, but there are other similar products made by Sonax, and P21S) in a gallon of the blue fluid and it gives excellent cleaning power, and doesn't dry out the wiper blades as easily so I never get chatter -

Highly recommended, plain blue fluid doesn't clean worth of crap - And the orange RainX fluid over time some have found it will kill the reservoir sensors because of the RainX additive

[andrewwynn]

Blue basic is useless. More because it freezes instantly if temp is below freezing. The bottle won't freeze but a wiped thin layer surely will.

I'm going to look into those additives I don't love the smeary film trade off but I do like the silence and it's ok to avoid running wipers at speed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by andrewwynn

Blue basic is useless. More because it freezes instantly if temp is below freezing. The bottle won't freeze but a wiped thin layer surely will.

I'm going to look into those additives I don't love the smeary film trade off but I do like the silence and it's ok to avoid running wipers at speed.

Let me know if you try one, theres actually less smeary film as the additive neutralizes some of the film left from methanol in the blue stuff - the cleaning power is absolutely there, however, and a nice fresh scent in the cabin when using the wipers - The Nextszett stuff was like $9 and makes I think 8 gallons of washer fluid -

And see post above from Stephen, if you are handy to modify the passenger wiper arm slightly (needs to be shortened 1.5"), I HIGHLY recommend the E70 (pre-LCI) wiper arm and blade retrofit -

Not only do the blades just rotate 90 degrees and slide off the arm, but you can stand both up to wash the car without the arms being vertical on the glass, which was a huge pet peeve of my E53 for a couple years - I've had them over a year now, going on 2, and love them.

[X53Jay4.8is]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

Let me know if you try one, theres actually less smeary film as the additive neutralizes some of the film left from methanol in the blue stuff - the cleaning power is absolutely there, however, and a nice fresh scent in the cabin when using the wipers - The Nextszett stuff was like $9 and makes I think 8 gallons of washer fluid -

And see post above from Stephen, if you are handy to modify the passenger wiper arm slightly (needs to be shortened 1.5"), I HIGHLY recommend the E70 (pre-LCI) wiper arm and blade retrofit -

Not only do the blades just rotate 90 degrees and slide off the arm, but you can stand both up to wash the car without the arms being vertical on the glass, which was a huge pet peeve of my E53 for a couple years - I've had them over a year now, going on 2, and love them.

+1 on the E70 wiper mode. I love the fact that I can position the wipers now so that I can wash , clean and dry the vehicle with out interference of the wipers. I do not know who at BMW dropped the ball on the OE wipers but they should of lost their bonus money over this.

On the rear of the X I installed a modern volvo XC90 Wiper arm. No modifications direct swap.

[StephenVA]

I have come to the conclusion that most of the "blade or wiper noise" is from oil, silicone, road scum build up on the windshield. The swiping action of the blade deposits the stuff when the wipe edge "flips" to reverse direction. It shows up as a vertical white line on the windshield.

Replacing the entire blade, instead of just the wipe element (refills), solves the wiper blade tension issue as the blades get old and loose their ability not to "walk" in their mounting points, which creates crabbing. As mentioned earlier, our poor X5 suffer from pivot point drying out and bushings going bad. The passenger side that does not fold get totally abused by those scrapping ice, cleaning snow etc from the windshield.

Time to resurrect that Upgrade to E70 Wiper Arms posting
https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...ed-my-e53.html

[andrewwynn]

I re-built my wife's wiper power rod that snapped (fixing what costs $100+ used for free with some steel strap and 3 self-tapping screws.

I would call your hack a "2 on a 10 scale".

My wife's wiper driver side is mysteriously missing the connector from the arm to wiper so rather than fix that, I will be doing the X70 upgrade for sure.

I will try TWO of the additives: handy thing having two near identical x5s. I used to use similar in my Z28 Camaro and was happy with that. (Boy that was a car that needed it: I think it had 28" wipers, the windshield is raked like 20° angle

[audiophool]

If you have noise, it's probably blade chatter. Park the wipers vertically by turning off ignition mid-sweep. Look at the arm in relation to the window and if there's much of an angle you've found the problem. If the rubber insert can't 'flip' when it changes direction, it'll push the blade at the 'up' angle when going down. There's your chatter.

Simple fix is to twist the arm using a couple of 12" metric crescent wrenches until the flat part of the arm is parallel to the glass at top of sweep. Just place the wrenches an inch or so apart then apply opposing force. Don't pry against the glass...

I've found that using Rain-X works well. I do a glass clean and apply once or twice a year. The Rain-X winter fluid does a pretty good job of maintaining the film integrity and I switch to the summer stuff once risk of frost is gone.