Tips & tricks: windscreen wipers and sprays deserve care

Windscreen wipers and sprays are among the most important safety features a car has. So it’s wise to take good care of them, especially now that winter is setting in.

2. Wipers aren’t ice scrapers

Does it matter if wipers freeze to the windscreen in autumn and winter? That doesn’t matter so much, but you should never turn them on when they’re frozen stuck. And pulling them free will almost certainly leave tears in the blades. The same applies if you activate your wipers when there are ice crystals on the windscreen. “That makes it a good idea – if you do have to park outside in freezing conditions – to put the wipers in the raised position so they aren’t touching the windscreen. If they freeze to the windscreen in their resting position beneath the bonnet, you have to de-ice the windscreen first. That takes a long time for one thing, and for another you need to be able to estimate when the wipers are no longer frozen stuck,” advises Pavel Švejdar, who is responsible for windscreen wipers and sprays at ŠKODA Technical Development.

3. Don’t let the spray nozzles freeze over

While we’re on the subject of freezing up, neglecting your spray nozzles in the cold months can lead to trouble as well. If you haven’t changed the wiper fluid for a freeze-resistant winter mixture, remember one important step. Get all the summer fluid out of the hoses as well, especially the long one leading to the rear windscreen, because frozen wipers are a nasty and unnecessary headache.

Filling ŠKODA cars with the wiper fluid is made easier by a Simply Clever feature: the tank’s neck is shaped like a funnel in newer cars. The funnel contains a 0.5 millimetre mesh screen, which is enough to keep out coarser impurities that could block the nozzles. And if you do spill a little fluid when topping up the tank, don’t worry: it won’t do any harm to the nearby engine parts. Oh, and by the way: in ŠKODA cars, the fluid tank has a volume of three litres, or five if the car has headlight sprays, or seven litres if it’s for the Russian market.

4. When should you replace the wipers?

A common question: when is the right time to replace the wipers? Wipers are highly durable: they are tested for half a million wipes – but in real life they usually don’t last so long. Your eyes will tell you when the right time to change them is: when the wipers miss parts of the windscreen or leave marks or don’t travel smoothly over the windscreen. When replacing your wipers, first put them in the “service position” (see box), which is the only way to work with them safely. Pavel Švejdar recommends buying original brand wipers rather than cheap alternatives. “The cheaper versions may claim to fit a number of different brands and models, but they never fit as well as the originals. The same applies to other spare parts. In addition, generic products usually have a large universal adapter connecting the joint and the arm, which is ugly when seen from inside and outside the car,” Švejdar explains.

5. Mandatory headlight spray

To finish, let’s look at one more issue. First a number: 2.3 bar. That is the pressure at which your self-extending integrated headlight sprays operate.  Seeing is important, but so is being seen – and these sprays help make you safer on the road. “Lots of people don’t realise, but dirty headlights can be dangerous. Some headlights emit a very intense light, especially xenon ones. When the headlight cover is dirty, the refracted light means they are more likely to cause glare for oncoming drivers. That’s why sprays are mandatory for this kind of headlight. For other types of headlight – like LED ones – the spray is for convenience rather than a necessity,” Švejdar concludes.