Out of nowhere the wipers on my 3 month old car are dragging and chattering. They were fine before. It started happening during a rain storm. What should I do?

 

Welcome to the club.
I live where it rains a lot, and dragging chattering wipers have been a problem since day one.
Many threads on this issue.
Lots of advice.

2 things have helped me.
#1. I use Rain-X. Treatment seems to reduce chattering and drag.

#2. I bought an expensive set of Bosch wiper blades...entire assemblies. These more or less solved the problem. I however kept the original blades and assemblies as replacement of the Bosch, you can't buy inserts, would be expensive again.

There is thread somewhere that suggests Honda made some changes.

If it was me? You might try to get it addressed as a warranty issue.

IMO...I'm very happy with my Honda Fit, but a few issues have been annoying .
The wiper blades being one of them.

IMO it almost seems like the one piece blades, are so large, they aren't stiff enough to slide against the glass smoothly, they seem to flex too easily.
But that's just an empirical personal observation- guess.

All my older vehicles had the old steel bracket wipers, and they never chattered or dragged.

Good Luck.
If you go to the dealership or find a solution---let us know.
I have a marginal work around. But buying whole new aftermarket wiper blade assemblies is an expensive option. One I would not want to have to repeat every 2 years or less.
It rains a lot here. So I have to change blades pretty frequently.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm just wondering why all the sudden this is happening when they've been silent for 3 months. It's rained here a lot before, this isn't a new situation.

 

 

I don't know.
Of course I live in the Pacific Northwest, so I discovered pretty quickly that the wipers dragged and chattered.

Wasn't raining the day I purchased or test drove. Didn't discover the problem, until the 1st real rain. But it was about the 1st time I had to really use the wipers.

IMO I've read enough posts from enough people to conclude I think Honda has a problem here.
You are not alone with this problem.

 

I use rain-x wiper fluid. Maybe something in there keeps them lubricated but I haven't had a problems.

 

I use that too

 

I also use Rain-X fluid and it works well. On a previous car I had tried their windshield treatment and that worked well until it started wearing off. It wears off unevenly which causes chatter. I cleaned the windshield stripping off all of it and I never used it again. I don't want something that I have to keep re-applying.

 

And it's not doing it anymore. Go figure.

 

The chattering is probably from the longer arm flexing. When it's dry there's not a huge amount of friction, and when it's raining heavily there's not a huge amount of friction because there's enough water to span the whole blade evenly. I get chatter when there's light/intermittent rain, so when the blade sweeps across the windshield it pulls the water into streaks.

My thinking is this makes the amount of friction variable, so the arm flexes back and then springs forward when it hits a wet patch. Not sure what to do about it, though, I'm not eager to try attaching stiffening braces on the wiper arm. If they had made it a little wider, I bet it would help.

 

The same thing happens to me. It seems like overnight they go from great to dragging.

 

It happened with me. But honda refused to fix it under warranty. They suggested to replace arms and inserts. I wanted to replace the inserts and use rain-x and see if it helps. Mine pushes hard against the window and it fails. Another annoying thing is granularity with speed. Setting 2 is too fast and setting 1 is too low. There is no another fin

 

That's depressing as I was hoping before my warranty period expires to reinstall the original blade assemblies and see if Honda would replace the arms. Or do anything.

I can see refusal based on inserts, as they are wear items. But the arms? How can they simultaneously recommend replacing them, but then NOT have it be a warranty issue? Those are metal, tangible parts that come from the factory as is. Unless they contend that somehow you damaged them, then if they aren't working right and need to be replaced, that would IMO be a defective part...from the factory. Which IMO should be covered under warranty.

I do bet however if put back the original assemblies and pursued it, I'd probably get a similar run around.

 

i apply polymer based sealant spray (Prima Hydro) to the glass, but any off the shelf sealant should work.

rain-x also works nice too as it adds a light smooth film on the glass. heck if u drive higher than 45mph changes are you can turn off your wipers and watch the water roll up towards the roof while driving.

 

Mine were chattering from day one. Car was manufactured in 2015 Feb, I purchased it in 2015 June.

Pull out the rubber strips, rotate them 180 degrees, and put them back in again (there is a little bump on one end of the strip; place it at the other end of the blade). I did this after a few months. Reduced the chattering quite a lot.

I think that the chattering is due to the contact edge being at an angle instead of at right angles to the blade and to the windshield. And that the angle is due to the rubber hardening in that position.

Turning the blades around may however put more stress on the thin flexible area behind the contact edge (where they always tear with age) and cause the rubber to tear earlier.

At about 2.5 years, after the rubbers tore, I replaced the original rubbers with new genuine Honda rubbers ($20.20 plus free shipping from ebay seller). The new ones are working great. The new ones seem to be impregnated with some graphite lube or something. Came off on my fingers. They seem much softer than the originals too. I'm guessing the original rubbers hardened after awhile due to acid rain or air pollution or ultraviolet or whatever - just from sitting out in the air - and that Honda started using a better longer-lasting rubber formulation for the newer rubbers that I bought.

 

put rainx on the windshield and clean your glass, also wipe the wiper blade insert,.. it drag because it was cold?

 

There are a lot of different factors that can lead to a wiper chattering and dragging.

I can assure you in my specific case, it was NOT because the windshield wasn't clean, or the blades were not clean.

With the original inserts and blade assemblies, I tried everything, including Rain-X, which I use regularly anyway.
Nothing really helped.

Totally replacing the blade assemblies...with aftermarket Bosh, along with using Rain-X, ....works in my case.

Which would tell me the problem has something to do with the original blade assemblies.

It's my opinion, that the one piece Blade assemblies..especially the large one on the drivers side, simply flex too easily. But that's just an empirical and speculative observation.

 

No chatter here after replacement with Honda blades. Interestestily, the graphite was not on the new rear wiper blade. Maybe it does not need it like the front blades.

 

Are these blades original? I would like to buy it from here. Honda store asked me $25 for these blades.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/192076748135

 

ritholtz, I bought replacement blades a year ago from keenanhonda on ebay. They are now charging $20.20 delivered. Yours is a better deal at $14.68 delivered. I'll save your link for my next purchase.