With Wings As Eagles: Craig P. Steffen's Blog

Major Victory in January: wiper motor!

2015 April 06 08:08

The one real problem I've ever had with my 2008 VW has been the wiper motor. I had the motor replaced early on under warranty, and then a couple of years later, I had the gear mechanism replace on my dime. I guess it's just under-engineered, because it started to intermittently fail over the winter, and failed completely in January (when I was loaning the car to someone--OOPS!).

It failed on me COMPLETELY when I was out shopping. I drove it home, in a bit a rain, very slowly. I do NOT recommend that. I won't do it again. That was kinda scary.

Anyway, I got it home (that was a Friday, I think) and so I got out the big manual for the car. I decided that getting to the wiper motor assembly didn't look too bad, so I brought that car into the garage and tore into it. It wasn't, indeed, that bad. Here's the motor and wiper arm assembly out of the car:

and so first thing Saturday morning, I drove down to the VW dealer in Knoxville and bought a new motor.

Pangur, inspecting the new motor:

I installed it, and so by mid-afternoon, less than 24 hours after it had completely failed on me, the car was recommissioned. So it may well happen again, but now I know I can repair it quickly for only the cost of the part itself.