Windscreen wipers, Fiat Ducato 2009

[Mick Bajcar]

This may seem a silly question but, here goes.

 

My Chausson Welcome 76 on a Fiat Ducato 2009 has windscreen wipers that both operate the same way. My Wife is tall and when I operate the windscreen wipers they clean more or less on her eye-line meaning that she is looking through a patch that is unswept by the wipers. This is very distracting for her. The seat is in its lowest position (before anyone suggests that).

 

I know that many vehicles have wipers that work opposite ways to each other, a pretty simple design feature but I wondered if anyone who had experienced the same issue/problem had found a solution to it.

 

Mick Bajcar

[Keithl]

Swap seats with her then!

 

Just joking :D :D :D

 

Keith.

 

Edit to add: Or could you fit a longer blade without it fouling?

[Brian Kirby]

Mick Bajcar - 2017-10-02 2:53 PM

 

This may seem a silly question but, here goes.

 

My Chausson Welcome 76 on a Fiat Ducato 2009 has windscreen wipers that both operate the same way. My Wife is tall and when I operate the windscreen wipers they clean more or less on her eye-line meaning that she is looking through a patch that is unswept by the wipers. This is very distracting for her. The seat is in its lowest position (before anyone suggests that).

 

I know that many vehicles have wipers that work opposite ways to each other, a pretty simple design feature but I wondered if anyone who had experienced the same issue/problem had found a solution to it.

 

Mick Bajcar

You might find that a judicious increase in the wiper blade length/s would sweep a greater area. However, you'll need to check carefully that they won't snag each other in operation.

[Derek Uzzell]

You could remove the swivel from the passenger-seat, but your wife might not be too keen on that idea...

 

Modern vehicles tend (unsurprisingly) to have a windscreen-wiper pattern that is optimised for the driver, with the passenger’s vision through the windscreen being considered less critical.

 

2006-onwards Ducatos have a 26” wiper-blade for the driver-side and a 22” blade for the passenger-side, with a ‘push-button’ attachment to the wiper-arm (examples here)

 

https://www.wiperblades.co.uk/fiat-ducato-years-2006-to-2017-wiper-blades/

 

My 2015 Ducato is LHD, so the wiper-blades differ from RHD blades (which I assume your Chausson has) and the wiper-arm spindles are in a different position to those on RHD Ducatos. However, I did look at the pattern my Ducato’s wipers produce and I could see that a tall passenger’s forwards line of sight was likely to be through an unswept section of the windscreen. (Interestingly, my tall wife - who is not slow to complain - has never mentioned this and I’m certainly not going to ask her about it!).

 

There did seem to be the possibility to fit a 24” blade on the passenger side (as suggested above). It would come right to the edge of the screen by the screen-pillar, but looked like it would not ‘clash’ with the other wiper and MIGHT not reach the top of the screen. But without trying a blade I could not be sure.

 

A 24” blade would give you an extra 1” of upwards wipe, which should help. I believe the ends of the wiper-arms used with push-button blades come in two widths, so you’d need to get the correct one

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-MZ97ET4Pw

 

but otherwise the blades will have a reasonable degree of universality. So a blade like this

 

http://www.currentcare.co.uk/Products/wiper-blades--accessories/jointless-aero-wiper-blades/24-exact-fit-jointless-aero-wiper-blade-push-button-ef6-24.html

 

has a fair chance of fitting OK.

 

Other than fitting a longer blade (which I’ve done in the past, though not on a Ducato) I can’t think what else you can realistically do.

[Billggski]

....just wondering if the wiper arms are different lengths. I could check, but it's raining.

[Derek Uzzell]

The wiper-arms of my LHD Ducato X290 both measure around 28” in length.

 

However, the arms are not interchangeable as the driver-side arm is straight, whereas the passenger-side arm is ‘kinked' to allow its wiper-blade to be correctly positioned on the windscreen.

 

The attached photo shows that the wiper-arms of a RHD Ducato X250 are the same - driver-side one straight, passenger-side one kinked.

[Mick Bajcar]

Thanks for the suggestions. The blade on the nearside is shorter on the nearside, 22", which I had never noticed before and I might just get away with a slightly longer blade on that as suggested by Derek. An extra couple of inches might just do the trick (on the blade too) :-)

 

I occasionally drive a Merc van for a friend and that has wipers that go opposite ways thus obviating the problem and I had wondered if Fiat might have done something like that on other models. But then, Fiat Merc, Merc, Fiat......probably silly of me.

 

Failing that I might just have to get a shorter Wife !

 

Mick Bajcar

[Derek Uzzell]

Mercedes has a history of fitting ‘unusual’ windscreen-wiper systems and their A-class models’s wipers both swept to the screen pillars. This did not make them problem-free though, as this link mentions

 

http://www.aclassinfo.co.uk/mypage.42.htm

 

Before trying a longer passenger-side blade, check how close the present blade comes to the top of the windscreen. I think a 24” blade may slightly overlap the glass on the left screen-pillar side, but that should be OK. However, if the longer blade extends past the top of the screen and contacts the vehicle’s bodywork, that will matter.