Kam

Prof. Myang Li - Yum!
Jun 6, 2002
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South East
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Just bought a set of arms and wipers for my car off Ebay. Despite the seller saying it will come with the nuts and nut covers, it didn't :(

Does anyone know if the ones that are used to secure my conventional wipers to my car will fit for the Aeros?

Additionally, the 2 wiper blades, where they fit to the wiper arms, one of them is centralised, the other is off centre. Does the centralised one fit to the drivers side?

Many thanks.
 
Anyone with any ideas? Looking to fit tomorrow, don't want to spend the time taking the arm off in order to find out. Thanks!
 
yes i think the original bolts will be ok. also yes one wiper is connected off centre.
see info below (copied from a previous thread this is my shortish guide)


hi all.

Fitted my aero wipers yesterday, here is some information on what i found:
(These are the ones from Vagparts.com listed as the leon aero package).

At this point i should say that this is how i did it, but also that i am not a seat technician or mechanic so will not accept any abuse, hassle, or responsibilty if you choose to follow my lead!


as standard my leon had:

1x short arm and 1 x long blade on drivers side
1x long arm and 1 x short blade on passenger side

on checking the parts delivered they seemed to match up so i started the work...

Marked out position of original wipers before starting using tape on windscreen, which i recommend doing..

Before attempting removal i opened the bonnet and stopped the wiper arms in mid stroke as this seemed to give the easiest position for removal.
I also removed the blades as it seemed cumbersome to attempt it with the blades waving about! - possible eye injury, or possibly more importantly, bonnet damage!
(one point of warning; put something on the windsreen like newspaper as i think if you slipped and the arms came crashing down, the windscreen could get damaged as the blades have been removed).

I removed caps on wiper arms using smallish blade screw driver. (carefull not the scratch anything or loose the caps into engine bay)
Then removed the 13mm bolts using standard socket wrench. If you dont have a torque wrench try and take note of how tight the arms where for when you fit new ones.

The arms will then need to be removed carefully. They will still be stuck on well as there are splines on the connector that mark in to the wiper arm when the bolt is done up tight.

In my case the arms didnt come off easily so i applied some WD40 and left them for a while.
After this one arm came off easily using a gently rocking motion, - one didnt, but after some patience it did come off. Again bear in mind possible mechanical damage to car if you start to be too heavy handed, or the arm comes off with force and hits the bonnet or a painfullbody part!

ONCE REMOVED RESEST THE WIPER MOTOR TO THE START POSITION IF YOU STOPPED IT MID STROKE.

I then replaced the arms with the new ones, with the blades fitted so that i could line them up with the masking tape on the windscreen and check for fitment before tightening the bolts.

(only tighten the bolts when you are happy with the positioning, as when you do this the splines will mark into the arm so really you want to get this right first time).
DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN

However when i checked the positioning...
i found that the passenger blade was in fact too long!
It was about 30mm too long so that it went off side of the windscreen and onto the dark grey trim.

Damm!

At this point i called the parts guys are vagparts.com who were surprised to hear my predicament... but very helpfull!
To try and quote them they said,
"oh, thought we had cracked that one..."
We checked the part numbers, how i had them fitted and all the possible fitment combinations.

They said to me that they stock all the different arm and blade combinations available and that if i did think there was a better combination then they would happily send a replacement. - but i had the right combination in the right place so carried on.
Generally i found then very helpfull and willing to take time out to discuss the issue.


So then it was decision time.

1: Trim the wiper blade to fit.

2: Adjust starting position of the passenger arm/blade so that it is slightly higher on windscreen, as it will then clear the trim. (about 1.5 inches higher)

(having looked at some pics, the position of the blades does seem to alter car to car... if you do this mod you may find that your blades are higher than mine and possibly dont need trimming).


I decided to go for option 1, as:

1: I think it doesn’t look so good in a higher starting position.

2: wanted the blades as low as possible as due to their aero design they are intended to be low to avoid any possible increases in air noise when driving in the dry.

(note that i fitted the drivers side arm as per original as it seemed low enough. Also if you lower this one you will get more area by the driver side pillar not covered by the wiper action).

If you do decide to trim the blades, have a good look at it before you start, im not going to try and detail how i did it as im sure i made it difficult for myself, ill just say it invloved a stanley knife, metal saw, work bench and lots of swearing.



I trimmed about 30 mm of the end of the passenger blade and refitted to the arm.
Then Re-adjusted the position of the arm slightly so that i was happy with the positioning before tightening up the arm bolts.
(i put bonnet down as well so that i could see how it would look on the car)

I then 3/4 tightened the bolts so that i could do a test run and ensure the wipers worked correctly, didnt hit either pillar, go off the wind screen or do anything silly.
Once happy i fully tightened the bolts.

After tightening the bolts i replaced the caps that cover the arm bolts and then stood back to look at my handy work.

My impression in the look side is that i am very happy with them, i have read that some people think they look bit strange, but i think they are an improvment.
They are also more stealthy. - What i mean by that is that they dont seem so stand out on the car as much as the originals.
(never noticed next doors golf has them!)

Performance wise....
Well im actaully yet to experience this as it stopped raining 2 mins before i finished and is yet to start again.
(i can now say they are much better than standard wipers, although you do need to clean the screen more often to compensate for the softer rubber)

Time wise:

removal of originals: 15 mins, mostly trying to ease the arms off the splines plus 20 mins watching tele while WD40 did its bit.

Setting out and checking position of new arms / blades: 3 mins.

Trimming of passenger blade: 15 mins. ( or bodge it in 2)

Tighening of bolts and replacing caps 1 min.


So less than an hour start to finish including some tele, so cant complain!

You could do it in half that if the arms come off easily, or just plain work faster as i know im fussy.

Overall an easy mod.
 
you only need cut the blade if you want to have the passenger side wiper to sit nice and low when in the rest position.

some people say it needs cutting some not. guess it comes down to personal choice and / or how the original ones were fitted.

take your time removing the old arms.
 
andycupra said:
you only need cut the blade if you want to have the passenger side wiper to sit nice and low when in the rest position.

some people say it needs cutting some not. guess it comes down to personal choice and / or how the original ones were fitted.

take your time removing the old arms.

Thanks Andy! I will be spraying WD40 into the bolts tonight. Hopefully by tomorrow morning, it will be easier to undo. Mind you, when I took my Leon to Jabbasport to be remapped, they had the arms taken off is about a minute - no fussing with WD40. 'spose they have a knack ...
 
Well, I have done it but it :) I tried to use the guide above but unfortunately it didn't get me very far! The driver's side arm nut must have been tightened by the strongest man in Germany as it took everything I had to slacken it! Due to this the arms were practically welded on :( Sprayed on loads of WD40 and left it.

Then :idea: I remembered I had a Haynes manual :doh: Round 2, I followed their method, which seemed to be more brute force - it did work and the arms came off within seconds! If anyone else decides to remove the wiper arms off their car, here is a little snippet courtesy of the Haynes VW Golf & Bora Service & Repair Manual:

 
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