In a typical windshield wiper arrangement, you have at least one blade and at least one separate windshield washer fluid nozzle located on the hood or in the cowl or even on the wiper arm. Hit the control for the washer function and a big spritz of washer fluid gets pumped onto the windshield. While a dose of this cleaning cocktail can help get dirt off your windshield, a fan-style fluid nozzle is hardly effective at evenly covering the entire swept area of the wiper blades. Enter, the high-performance part of Jeep’s new high-performance windshield wiper blades. New hoses redirect windshield washer fluid to the blades themselves, then 12 laser-cut holes in the blades let the fluid flow smoothly and evenly across the swept area of the wiper blades. This allows for more even application of washer fluid for thorough windshield cleaning when you hit the washer function. It’s rather ingenious, although Jeep isn’t the first manufacturer to do this. Most high-end Mercedes models sold in the past decade or so can be had with a variant of this system dubbed Magic Vision Control. It’s a pretentious name, but Mercedes’ system does have some advantages over a more traditional setup. For starters, the washer fluid is heated, which means that ice can be melted off of the wiper blades. Pretty nifty, although far from the only perk. Imagine you’re motoring along in your 2014 Mercedes-Benz SL 550 with the retractable hardtop down, Steely Dan on the stereo, and your toupee flapping in the breeze. Things are going well until an envious seagull decides to use your windscreen as a lavatory. Now there’s precisely one dollop of avian waste directly in your line of vision. In a lesser cabriolet, you’d shortsightedly reach for the washer function, only to have a mixture of washer fluid and bird crap mist over you like Axe body spray. That really puts the toilette in eau de toilette, don’t you think? Thankfully, Mercedes has thought of that. Because fluid doesn’t have to travel at enormous pressure to reach the surface of the windshield, Mercedes can control splatter. While reduced open-top splatter is certainly nice, it’s certainly not the biggest benefit of in-blade washer nozzles. Mercedes-Benz claims that Magic Vision Control can reduce washer fluid consumption by up to 50 percent, all while improving safety. Wait, what? Well, when traditional washer nozzles absolutely bukkake your windshield with cleaning fluid, you experience a few seconds of not being able to see a damn thing. At 70 mph (114 km/h), a vehicle travels more than 200 feet (61.16 meters) in two seconds, plenty of distance for shit to suddenly hit the fan. Because these special blades don’t spray fluid across the whole windshield in one go, forward visibility is preserved. Overall, Magic Vision Control is more precise than arm-mounted nozzles or hood-mounted nozzles, plus the ability to blast ice from the wiper blades is pretty awesome. While recent high-end Mercedes-Benz models are expensive, Jeep’s kit costs a mere $140 at your local Mopar parts counter. That’s not bad considering that the kit includes two sets of special blades, new wiper arms, and the necessary tubing required to send washer fluid up to the wiper blades. Granted, there are still some unknowns about Jeep’s kit. Replacement wiper blades likely won’t be easy to find at your local generic auto parts store, and winter performance without a heating system is still very much up in the air. Anyone who’s lived in a place with four fully-fledged seasons will know that ice buildup on wiper blades can get surprisingly thick, even to the point where winter-formula washer fluid can’t melt the frozen shackles of Jack Frost. Perhaps the biggest known drawback to Jeep’s high performance wiper blades is that they only appear to have holes for fluid flow on one side. This means that the passenger side blade will be wiping across a fairly dry windshield on its way back down to its parked position, which can put extra wear on the blade. Many modern cars with traditional washer nozzles use an extended spray to keep the wiper blades lubricated through a full sweep, so Jeep’s high-performance setup will likely see slightly quicker blade wear compared to a standard setup. We’ve reached out to Mopar for comment on replacement blade costs and whether or not the high performance wiper kit is fully reversible. In the meantime, this wiper kit looks like it could be a solid upgrade provided you live in a reasonably warm climate. The vertical nature of Wrangler and Gladiator windshields means they’re a magnet for bugs and mud, so a better way of spraying washer fluid feels like it’s worth a shot. As for performance in cold-weather climates, the jury’s still out. While these blades should do an awesome job of washing away salt stains on dry days, we’d need to test these blades to know if they’re still effective with ice coating the wipers. Lead photo credit: Jeep It comes with a QR code instead of paper instructions. The link currently 404’s, so it probably hasn’t been added to starparts yet. I contacted Mopar, but who knows how long that will take to post. It looks easy-ish to install, except you have to pull the full arm to get the cowl plastic off for hose routing. I’m going to wait to install the kit until they have instructions to make sure I get the routing correct. “nozzles absolutely bukkake your windshield with cleaning fluid” As for conventional systems, my R129 SL seems to try and mitigate spraying the cabin by using narrow jets instead of a wide fan pattern (I can’t rule out that they’re not just clogged or something though…). It definitely does not work as well as a “normal” spray pattern but the times I’ve had to use it with the top down I didn’t get anything on me. There’s a reason that the Wrangler windshield is the most-replaced piece of automotive glass in America. Stones that would glance off a more-sloped windshield crack directly into it. Little bits of tree still get stuck under the wiper blade and leave a perfect line of washer fluid on the windscreen directly in front of your eyes though. Cruising along with my arm out the window trying to catch the wiper arm as it comes up so I can flick it up a smidge and free that leaf/ice it keeps dragging across the windshield. Actually lost a blade in a snowstorm on a highway trying to do exactly that. I timed it poorly (caught it on the down stroke) and it just snapped off. Had to finish the trip home manually wiping with a stolen gas station squeegee. Can we get a button on the stalk that lifts the wipers off the glass for a second. Or even automatically every tenth stroke or so. (Don’t worry, I returned the snaffled squeegee the next day)
- Isn’t a bit of soak time good to loosen grime before wiping?
- How would these nozzles perform if the system was pressurized by the spare tire? (Torch question)
I’ve owned cars with single nozzles on the wipers that would easily freeze in Canadian cold if they were not used frequently.
I await reports on the new mousetrap out in the frozen field. What I will say though is that the design of the nozzles on a traditional setup matters a lot. A perfect example is the NA Miata, which from the factory comes with nozzles that each spray two pathetic pinpoints of fluid onto the windshield in tiny little narrow streams. As you might imagine, they suck. A common modification, which I’ve done, is to replace them with nozzles from a Mazda Tribute, which just pop right in like they were always made to go there. These spray a glorious, even fan of fluid at the windshield, perfectly coating the swept area in a consistent, substantial layer that makes sure every bit gets enough fluid, but nothing gets too much. What I’m saying is, automakers could get a lot of mileage out of just bothering to design nozzles that are more than just a check-the-box afterthought, without having to completely reinvent the wheel. It’s not about the basic design, it’s about the implementation. Want to douse that windshied to loosen things up? Nope, here come the blades immediately. Didn’t realize the nozzles were iced up? Too bad, there go the blades skittering along, getting wrecked. 1 wipe? 3 wipes? 7 with another bladt in the middle? Knock yourself out. We could have these halcyon days of total control again! (Now someone without a wiper-park circuit’s gonna out-Yorkshireman me!) Cars should come with a power user configuration menu where nerds like us can change these kinds of settings. It doesn’t (and shouldn’t) have to be anywhere that a driver would stumble into unexpectedly, because being confronted with a billion settings for everything from number of wiper passes after spraying to cruise control speed variation tolerance would be super annoying unless you really wanted to Go There with your car. It should be an option, though. It’s all just software now, so let the owner adjust things to their little OCD heart’s content, if they’re so inclined. However there are lots of other things that can be turned on or off in code, with the proper scan tool. For example I though the heated steering wheel temp used on my 2015 MKZ isn’t hot enough at 68 degrees. For what ever reason that an the 2014 had the lowest temp of any of the various vehicles that use that heated steering wheel control module. It is literally t digits of hex that is the temp in good old Fahrenheit. ForScan which is the Russian Hacker’s version of the factory software allows you to rewrite the selected bits. It even calculates the check digits before rewriting the relevant bits. There are literally dozens of things that you can change across many modules. I used on my F-250 when I changed to a different tire size, in that case you have the option from picking from all of the possible factory sizes or you can do your own calcs for non stock sizes. On my CAFE busting E-150 I rarely use its full 3000 lb capacity so I reset the tire pressures in the TMPS module to suit the proper pressures for the loads I carry most of the time. I also went to 4 blinks instead of 3 on the turn signal tap on my MKZ because that is what seems right to me. One reason they don’t want you to have total access is that sometimes that includes extra cost features. They charge fleets $40 to enable DRLs or to remove the user selectable DRLs. Bimmer Code allows you to adjust things in your BMW and VAG-COM for VW-Audi
