hahahaha....I had a great laugh at the dealership this morning. It turns out the replacement motor and gearbox for my windshield wiper assembly (that stopped working a couple nights ago) is going to cost ~ $1200 to replace.....labor included of course. WTF????? How does this ***** break in 80k miles? WTF? WTF? WTF?

Are e36 M3's any more reliable than these pieces of **** (said in the most loving way possible of course)? I told my service manager that I thought post '93 MB's were rolling piles of crap, and he muttered something about them still being at the top of consumer report's quality ratings. That was the second funniest thing I heard all morning......

 

$1,200? You have to be kidding me.

 

haha...thats what I said. I kid you not....list is almost $600 for the gearbox, another $150 or so for the motor (which they "recommend" replacing), and then 3 hrs labor, + 0.5 hr "troubleshooting"

 

Christ thats insane. I mean I love my mono wiper but that's ridiculous. After people see this post everyone's C43 is going to be a sunny day only car. Haha.

 

mmmm, yeah they brake because you have to take good care of em'...
grease them with ELF etc.
it gets to dry and end up by breaking..
motor itself is around 600$~ and the arm assembly around 800$~
so 1200 with labor and tax is actually a cheap price
it's not piece of ****...just take good care of it

it's the best wiper in the world if it works properly.

 

Never been impressed with that monowiper, it's just something made complex for the sake of being complex thus it's ridiculous price - it's in several models so you might find one used. I'll try to get you the WIS schematic, I have it buried in one of my thumb drives.

 

The one on my w201 has worked w/o problems for over 200k miles and 16 years......so I guess I would tend to disagree. The comment about it being a "piece of crap" is more a sum total of bad experiences with stuff breaking on this car that shouldnt (for example the lame *** trunk springs that actually sheared loose, etc, etc, etc....not to mention a couple repairs that have repeatedly f**ked themselves in 20k miles).

 

I was told that the transmission and motor on my wiper (99 w210) was broken and need to be replaced by my mechanic at a cost of $1120 installed. I looked up the parts online and he isn't necessarily screwing me (transmission ~$600, motor ~$250) but that seemed ridiculous to me for a wiper! I ended up buying the entire wiper system (ready to be bolted in) from a salvage yard for a total of $75 including tax and shipping with a 90 day warranty. I'm installing it myself tonight.

 

good alternative, just wish I had the time....plus I really don't ever want to replace this again!

 

Hello,

I just wanted to update you and let you know that it was an easy, quick fix and I do not plan on having to replace it again (this is not a common problem from what I can gather, kind of a fluke). It took about 1 hour to replace the wiper system and get everything back in place. It works perfectly and I saved myself over $1,000. Not too bad.

 

haha....god now I feel like a retard. Thats awesome though, other members TAKE NOTE

 

Oh yeah, almost forgot to add that the final bill actually came in under 1k so the damage wasn't QUITE so bad, if anyone wants to know for future reference

 

that sux, i've never heard of them failing.... instead of dumping a grand into that i'd invest 6 bux in rain-x

 

In the Pac NW even Rain-X won't get you down the freeway unfortunately

 

driven23 is a novice to car repair!!! so double props to him for taking on the wiper job and winning
When the dealers charge at some shops $880 bucks for a maf,you got off light if you paid a grand for the new wiper trans/motor install.

 

driven23 is a novice to car repair!!! so double props to him for taking on the wiper job and winning
When the dealers charge at some shops $880 bucks for a maf,you got off light if you paid a grand for the new wiper trans/motor install.

new wiper motor at autohausaz.com c43 about 90 bucks.for future reference

 

Yeah, I recently discovered them, and there is a big box sitting on my workbench right now w/ parts for my 190e 5.6 project.....crazy cheap

 

I have seen very few complete failures of the gearbox and motor. What usually happens is the internals under the plastic cover dry out and need to be relubed. The dealers can't seem to figure that out, but it is a simple, easy job. Just reach under the edges of the plastic cover over the gearbox to find the tabs, spread them open and pop the cover off. Use a good quality grease - even M-B sunroof grease will work. This is pretty common knowledge among MBCA members. The earlier cars like the 124 and 201 are much more difficult - you must remove the gearbox - but the internals are virtually the same.

Another failure is the linkage between the motor and the gearbox. Sometimes the plastic bushings fail. It isn't very expensive at all.

 

Cool, thanks for the tips

 

I thought I would revive this thread as it is a simple DIY to save yourself $1000+. I was having issue with my wiper pausing or stuttering and so I looked it up. Turns out you need to re-lube the monowiper (THANKS MARCUS) and here is how you do it:

1.) Turn your key to on and turn the wipers on, you want to turn your key off when the wipers are at 12 o'clock.


2.) Pull the plastic cover down and away from the wiper, it will feel like you are going to break it


3.) Down towards the bottom of the plastic cover for the wiper mechanism are two tabs (pictured below circled in red), pull from underneath them, out and up (I found it easiest to get in the middle of the car and lean over with both hands and pull at the same time, using one hand seemed impossible.)


4.) You can lube the mechanism without removing the arm but it is much easier to remove the arm, to remove the arm remove the bolt (pictured below circled in yellow) with an allen wrench and pull the arm out and then slide the plastic cover up and out to reveal the mechanism.


5.) Lube the mechanism (all 3 cylinders) with grease (I removed the old yellow grease you see in the picture below and used a white lithium as it is waterproof)


reverse the above to re-install.

Hope this helps, I know it solved my problem instantly and probably saved me close to $1000

 

Hey Dr. Doolittle
Another homemade fix with pozitiv results