Rear wiper on sedan?

greg donovan · Post by **greg donovan** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:07 pm

i know EU wrx sedan and coupes had a rear window wiper. did the 1st gen legacies in EU and Japan have them too?

anyone put one on a sedan here in US?

i have been spoiled by driving wagons and HBs and hate not being able to see cleary out my rear window in my sedan.

is this even possible?

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:26 pm

I know for sure that in Japan at least some BCs had rear wipers.

I would love a rear wiper on my sedan. It sucks not being able to see out the back in the rain. One day I'll try.

It'd probably make more sense to rig something up with domestic parts than to try to source the correct parts from overseas. I've heard mixed advice on modifying automotive glass. Some people say you can drill through it if you're careful; others say it'll just shatter. Some say if you bore through it with a little friction, like by sticking a wooden dowel in the chuck of an electric drill, you can do it. Some say the rear window is different from the other glass, so the advice you hear might be all wrong.

But it seems like it might be possible to modify the sedan's rear glass, or get custom rear glass made, and then adapt the parts from a BF.

tris91ricer · Post by **tris91ricer** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:47 pm

I'd been thinking about this, too, considering I live in the rainiest state in the nation.. plus, it's a pretty tyte thing to have. It can' t be mounted to the roof? Do you really have to drill the glass?

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:55 pm

I suppose you could mount it wherever you want... but it seemed to me that it would fit most nicely right on the hat shelf and poking through the glass.

tris91ricer · Post by **tris91ricer** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 7:29 pm

mm.. okay. I guess either way you do it, you'd have to be careful of getting seal just right, or you risk getting water either in the roof, or thru the glass...

greg donovan · Post by **greg donovan** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 10:43 pm

to bad japanese glass would never make it here in one piece.

probably the best way to do it would be to get a spare rear sedan window from the salvage yard and an assembly from a wagon and do it off of the car and then have a shop swap the window out.

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 11:13 pm

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, Greg.

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 11:39 pm

If you find a big enough yard, you could probably experiment with drilling with a corldess drill.

Steve

eastbaysubaru · Post by **eastbaysubaru** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 11:45 pm

^LOL.

I've always bitched about how my wife's RS doesn't have a rear wiper. It truly sucks if you live where it rains a lot.

-Brian

mikec · Post by **mikec** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 11:46 pm

evolutionmovement wrote:If you find a big enough yard, you could probably experiment with drilling with a corldess drill.

Steve

Thats an awesome idea!! It wouldn't even have to be a Subaru

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 11:56 pm

Steve - Yeah, I was thinking about that... But it might be worth talking to someone who specializes in automotive glass. If the cost to custom-make the necessary piece isn't too high, then it'd be nice to have someone else responsible for doing it right.

greg donovan · Post by **greg donovan** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 6:35 am

vrg3 wrote:Steve - Yeah, I was thinking about that... But it might be worth talking to someone who specializes in automotive glass. If the cost to custom-make the necessary piece isn't too high, then it'd be nice to have someone else responsible for doing it right.

thats what i was thinking. i would think that if i could talk a place into doing it for under 300 it would be worth it.

magicmike · Post by **magicmike** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 3:14 pm

Not gonna happen guys, your back window is tempered glass like the side windows. You cant drill through that.

Brat4by4 · Post by **Brat4by4** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 3:30 pm

Even if you taped the window before you drilled? Has anyone tried Rain-X on the rear window to keep the water moving off of it?

I know in my car above 60 mph I don't even need the wipers with the way the water streams off the windshield.

90LegAWD · Post by **90LegAWD** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 3:40 pm

yes, use rain-X. no need for a wiper then

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 3:53 pm

Rain-X-type stuff helps, but it's not the same.

Mike - Thanks for squashing our dreams.

What are your thoughts on custom glass?

BAC5.2 · Post by **BAC5.2** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 4:55 pm

While moving at any normal speed on the highway, rain doesn't even hit the rear window

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 5:46 pm

Yeah, that's a nice side effect of the sedan aerodynamics... But I do plenty of driving at low speed in the rain. It rains like every day here.

greg donovan · Post by **greg donovan** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 6:12 pm

i want this for backing up at night when its raining and whatnot. of course on highway it doesnt matter.

magicmike · Post by **magicmike** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 11:52 pm

vrg3 wrote: Mike - Thanks for squashing our dreams.

no problem....just the realist in me. Its great to think of cool stuff but the fact of the matter is that when you take a 10-14 year old car somewhere to try to get a quote on some custom glass or whatever, you might not be taken too seriously. I've run into this now with my crushed A pillar. No body shop I have gone to will even touch it. I have even said "listen, I've spent 5 thousand on the engine alone, I think I can afford to fix the body up a little". The truth is that I think our cars are looked at as crappy by other people. I'm sure that If I rolled to any of those body shops in my infiniti they would be tripping over me to do the work.

greg donovan · Post by **greg donovan** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 6:18 pm

magicmike wrote:
vrg3 wrote: Mike - Thanks for squashing our dreams.
no problem....just the realist in me. Its great to think of cool stuff but the fact of the matter is that when you take a 10-14 year old car somewhere to try to get a quote on some custom glass or whatever, you might not be taken too seriously. I've run into this now with my crushed A pillar. No body shop I have gone to will even touch it. I have even said "listen, I've spent 5 thousand on the engine alone, I think I can afford to fix the body up a little". The truth is that I think our cars are looked at as crappy by other people. I'm sure that If I rolled to any of those body shops in my infiniti they would be tripping over me to do the work.

i find it odd that shops feel that way. i have run into it to. what do they care. money is money right? or are they really concerned about how i spend my money. the only thing i can think of is that they are afrraid that they will do the repair and have rust creep through somewhere and have you come back and expect them to repair it under warranty.

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 6:33 am

i think its more like, "I don't want to work on that piece of shit" Too bad most of the cars they actually do work on are worse than ours.

greg donovan · Post by **greg donovan** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 7:02 am

THAWA wrote:i think its more like, "I don't want to work on that piece of shit" Too bad most of the cars they actually do work on are worse than ours.

prides a bitch. wish they'd suck it up and just take the money. funny how when you want someone to part you from your maoney they won't.

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 5:32 pm

I think it's weird the perception from lots of mechanics that these cars are hard to work on. I laugh every time I drive by a place that has a sign saying 'We service Subarus' as if they're Lancias or something. Maybe the trained monkeys that a lot of mechanics are shut down when they see something less familiar like most idiots out there who refuse to educate themselves, yet are always afraid of shit they don't understand.

Steve

magicmike · Post by **magicmike** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 6:15 pm

I didn't mean to highjack the post, I just wanted to make my point.

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Rear wiper on sedan?

Rear wiper on sedan?