2010 prius wiper adjustment

Is the wiper rest position too high or low? This could happen after a windshield replacement.

On a different car, I unbolted the wiper arm from the spline shaft driving it, pulled it off the shaft, and re-mounted it one spline tooth higher. This was on a car where the rest position was below the line where the windshield defroster could heat the glass, so the wiper iced up too much. A later model put an electric defrost strip down along the rest position.

My Prii haven't experienced this problem (possibly due to less winter driving), so I haven't looked to see if it is a similar mounting. Hopefully someone else can chime in.

 

I recently had some significant engine work done and when the car was returned I can see the passenger side wiper blade through the windscreen in the resting state:



It caught my eye right away which makes me think this is parking higher than it was, but I honestly can't remember if it's been like this for 14 years and my brain is just being stupid.

[edit] Photos from NetCarShow would seem to suggest it's parked too high:

 

Remove the two pivot nuts and lift the wiper arm off both pivots, carefully, straight up.

Use a brass bristle brush up and down (with the direction of the splines) to clean out the splines on the shafts (protruding from the car) and the holes in the wiper arm.

Line up the arm (not pressing at all down onto the shafts yet) so that the tip of the wiper is at the small round dot that marks the park position of the Toyota windshield. (If you have a replacement non-Toyota windshield that doesn't have the dot, you're on your own.)

When lined up, press carefully straight down onto the shafts, paying attention to feeling it onto the nearest matching splines. Hold the arm from moving, and tighten both nuts to the specified torque without letting the arm move on the shafts.

The italicized be-careful-here parts are because the shaft splines are very shallow and fine, and easy to smush flat if you let the arm twist on the shaft.

Other than that, it's all easy.

 

Just remove the nut, wiggle the arm off, align it until it's just below the clear part
of the windshield, press the arm down near where it attaches to the motor part, tighten the nut.
You only need to snug it up, not super tight.

 

Two nuts, if it's the passenger side and it's in the US or whatever other markets use the double-jointed wiper.

I'm sure a lot of people are cavalier in how they treat the splined shafts and have been lucky, but I've always taken it a little more seriously and so does Toyota. Just to save you possible future headaches.



It's not the end of the world if the splines get mashed, you'll just have nuts that keep on working themselves loose later. Can be fixed by replacing the linkage.

21 newton meters (15 or 16 foot pounds) is about right for the nuts. No, you don't want them super tight, but not tight enough is also a problem, and will grind the splines out.

 

Thanks folks!

Simple fix - was the passenger side; the drive linkage (one on the right, not the passive linkage on the left) was the culprit. 14 mm socket. 60 second job.

One thing to remember: Try and hold the arm itself to get some counter-torque when tightening; you don't want to put all that torque directly on the linkage below, stressing anything.

 

Our 2011 has the opposite problem, the passenger wiper is making contact with the windshield molding/rubber seal on the bottom corner of the windshield. I'd like to raise it up at least an inch off that corner.

The position probably went off when the EGR cooler was cleaned, due to the wipers and windshield wiper cowling being removed to get access to the EGR cooler mounting bolts at the exhaust pipe flange.

Have to go take a look at it later.

That picture posted above, after the adjustment, looks like it's pretty close to the bottom of the windshield also. Depending on the length of the wiper blade, it could be close to touching the rubber moulding in the corner.

SM-G781V ?

 

I did try to remove the nuts on the arm and adjust the position about a week ago, but the next position on the spline shaft moved the wiper up too much. I believe it looked like the picture posted in the post above, pre-adjustment.

SM-G781V ?