LHD Wipers Fitted to RHD Car

Faults and Technical chat for the Volkswagen ID.3
simonrg
Posts: 249
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2020 11:40 pm

Post by simonrg »

I have seen a number of comments about the wipers being designed for a left hand drive car and thought that this had no functional effect, apologies to original posters if obvious to them, but I have only realised now that the wipers are functionally deficient when configured this way in an RHD car.

However, driving today, I realised that it is not just that they are for LHD car, but they are actually considerably less efficient for the driver of an RHD vehicle - keeping the driver's windscreen clear for a shorter length of time and leaving the left wiper end smear across the driver's window for a longer length of time.

The sequence is left wiper up, right wiper up, right wiper down, left wiper down - so unless I am mistaken a considerable portion of the RHD driver's windscreen spends considerably longer wet before being clear compared to the passenger or LHD driver.

Today driving through slush with vehicles spraying it onto my windscreen, it was visibly obvious as it slid down the screen before being wiped off.

Please let me know if I am in error, otherwise I will be asking Volkswagen to reconfigure my wipers correctly for an RHD car.
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Deleted User 192

Post by Deleted User 192 »

Totally agree - in addition the outer position of the left blade is further to the screen edge than the right which results in a thicker streak of water to the right edge of the screen than the left edge, and the washer spray is also stronger on the left side than the right.

I’ve reported this to my dealer and to VW UK - my car goes into the workshop on the 11th, I’m keen to see if this gets any attention.
stu-evs
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Post by stu-evs »

New to this forum (but longtime VW owner/fan/tinkerer!)...just got our ID.3 and can see what is being referred to here....I think there may be an easy fix?!

From what I can see the issues being described are simply a result of which wiper is first/last to sweep the screen - they are currently 'stacked' in idle with the passenger wiper on top.....looking at the mechanics the spindles are equally placed on each side - so I think you/we could just unbolt both wiper arms and switch the stacking order so that drivers side is on top when in the 'parked'/idle position....that would make the drivers side the last wiper to sweep the screen and mean that it sweeps closer up against the A-pillar.......haven't tried this myself but wiper mechanics have always been very simplistic.

Hope this helps.......and if it makes everyone feel a bit better then think yourself lucky it's not 1983 or earlier.....this has been a VW thing since the days of the Mk1 golf.....had a couple of those when they all had LHD wipers....but with the old style wipers that swept the same way (i.e. not centrally parked like on the ID.3) - then you were left with a giant unswept area on the drivers side - and no fix unless you wanted to start drilling new holes in panels and customising the mechanism!! Fortunately they did switch to having a RHD configuration from the Mk2 Golf (had a couple of those too!)!
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digital
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Post by digital »

Wouldn't that mean that with the passenger side, being underneath and wiping first, would hit the driver's side which had not moved?
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stu-evs
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Post by stu-evs »

digital wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 9:49 pm Wouldn't that mean that with the passenger side, being underneath and wiping first, would hit the driver's side which had not moved?
I think they both actually move at the same time - just that one is 'above' the other so appears to be wiping first. They are separated by an inch or so when stacked - which gives enough clearance for them to pass each other as the arcs open out while sweeping the screen. The mechanisms under the surface are normally very simple - powered by a single motor - the motor has no way of knowing where the arms are positioned or which is on top - they just move together - it's purely mechanical that sets where each arm is - and the geometry of the arcs is fixed.

I may be completely wrong - haven't actually tried it yet - but that was my observation on first glance.
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simonrg
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Post by simonrg »

digital wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 9:49 pm Wouldn't that mean that with the passenger side, being underneath and wiping first, would hit the driver's side which had not moved?
Yes, but as discussed on the Facebook group it looks like everything is down to software, so both wipers are mirror images, with individual motors and it is just the sequence / final position which needs to be changed. So it could just be another instance of ID.3 being rushed out with incomplete software, i.e. wipers work so move onto fix a bigger issue. Good news could be easy for VW to make them work correctly - put wipers into service position, install software with new sequence and then off you go.

This got me thinking as to how we have got here.

The ID.3 was in September released by VW as an MVP, minimum viable product, Wikipedia describes the idea "A minimum viable product (MVP) is a version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development.", "A focus on releasing an MVP means that developers potentially avoids lengthy and (ultimately) unnecessary work. Instead, they iterate on working versions and respond to feedback, challenging and validating assumptions about a product's requirements." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product Great idea but requires under promising on what the product can do, rapid improvement if the customer is going to be kept happy, plus surprise new features that the customer wasn't expecting. You might argue Tesla was successful with this on the model 'S' partly due to flexibility they had with over the air upgrades.

VW effectively admitted the ID.3's MVP status in September by having a "First Movers" group who were asked to test / feedback and who were offered support / compensation. I feel that the ID.3 is, based on what is in the brochure/on the website/VW publicitiy, still at the "MVP" stage certainly on 0564 software, so I am also effectively a "First Mover" without realising or being told. :roll:

Minimum viable product for a car is quite a high bar i.e. it has to drive safely / charge / heat / ..... The ID.3 0564 is claiming to do far more than just be a car and in all those extra features it is an MVP, yes it has ACC but it sometimes doesn't work, its battery range is not optimised, it drains its 12V battery, its alarm goes off, it doesn't know the difference between kilometres and miles, its autohold is a bit flakey..........

VW should be able to deliver on the full promise of the ID.3 through the software upgrades, but they need to be more up front with their customers, which is the whole point of the MVP concept where you need to build trust.
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Deleted User 192

Post by Deleted User 192 »

Another LHD thing I read about, then tested on my car yesterday - go into Smart Climate and choose Warm Hands, the air vents pointing at the passenger seat give out more warm air than the vents pointing at the driver seat.

Reported to my dealer ahead of my car going into the workshop on Monday (it's now the 19th thing on the list I compiled for them at their request)
hwhbev
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Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:48 pm

Post by hwhbev »

scott28tt wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:29 am Another LHD thing I read about, then tested on my car yesterday - go into Smart Climate and choose Warm Hands, the air vents pointing at the passenger seat give out more warm air than the vents pointing at the driver seat.

Reported to my dealer ahead of my car going into the workshop on Monday (it's now the 19th thing on the list I compiled for them at their request)
Still the same in 0783! :cry:
pdk42
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Post by pdk42 »

stu-evs wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 9:36 pm New to this forum (but longtime VW owner/fan/tinkerer!)...just got our ID.3 and can see what is being referred to here....I think there may be an easy fix?!

From what I can see the issues being described are simply a result of which wiper is first/last to sweep the screen - they are currently 'stacked' in idle with the passenger wiper on top.....looking at the mechanics the spindles are equally placed on each side - so I think you/we could just unbolt both wiper arms and switch the stacking order so that drivers side is on top when in the 'parked'/idle position....that would make the drivers side the last wiper to sweep the screen and mean that it sweeps closer up against the A-pillar.......haven't tried this myself but wiper mechanics have always been very simplistic.

Hope this helps.......and if it makes everyone feel a bit better then think yourself lucky it's not 1983 or earlier.....this has been a VW thing since the days of the Mk1 golf.....had a couple of those when they all had LHD wipers....but with the old style wipers that swept the same way (i.e. not centrally parked like on the ID.3) - then you were left with a giant unswept area on the drivers side - and no fix unless you wanted to start drilling new holes in panels and customising the mechanism!! Fortunately they did switch to having a RHD configuration from the Mk2 Golf (had a couple of those too!)!
It's not a geometry problem, it's a time sequence problem. The sequence now is left up, right up, right down, left down. it should be right up, left up, left down, right down for a RHD car.
Deleted User 192

Post by Deleted User 192 »

pdk42 wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 12:26 pm It's not a geometry problem, it's a time sequence problem. The sequence now is left up, right up, right down, left down. it should be right up, left up, left down, right down for a RHD car.

The LH wiper also moves closer to the screen edge than the RH one - so for a full and proper RHD setup there is a physical alignment which would be needed as well as any sequence change.
pdk42
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Post by pdk42 »

scott28tt wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 12:32 pm
pdk42 wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 12:26 pm It's not a geometry problem, it's a time sequence problem. The sequence now is left up, right up, right down, left down. it should be right up, left up, left down, right down for a RHD car.

The LH wiper also moves closer to the screen edge than the RH one - so for a full and proper RHD setup there is a physical alignment which would be needed as well as any sequence change.
Yes, I'd noticed that too. The motors are independent though and there is no physical difference I can see in their location or in the geometry and size of the the two arms. So, I'm thinking it's plausible that software could fix both of these issues (sequence timing and edge sweep). Whether VW ever will is of course another completely different issue !
stu-evs
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Post by stu-evs »

Soooo...coming back to say I was wrong!!! Not such as easy fix! Spent some time having a good look at this today - and I guess the positive is that VW are absolutely spot on when they say that this car is a 'ground up' new design.....the wipers are certainly a good example of departing the way they've approached things for decades! There are separate motors (sorry to those that already knew this - I'd not looked before posting previously) - I assume that's as the wipers are both pivoted at the wings so a mechanical mechanism would have been more tricky vs. the traditional wipers going the same way.

Anyway - what I found is that it's actually BOTH a mechanical and electronic issue! Yes, the passenger wiper motor does 'set off' a little ahead of the driver side - but the wiper arms are also subtly different - there is a bend in the arm near the pivot (to the left/anti-clockwise) - this enables the wipers the lie parallel when they're parked. So...the fix would be a minor coding change to swap the motor delay from one to the other - but would also require new wiper arms with the bend to the right/clockwise. This would enable the wipers to be 'stacked' the other way around.

Hopefully the coding won't be too difficult when Ross-Tech/the community get under the skin of the new module protection - previous VWs have been easy to code sequences of activity across components. I haven't plugged VCDS in yet - it may already be possible - but I've assumed not based on what I've read elsewhere. And I'm sure that VW outsource the wiper arms to someone like Valeo - so hopefully they also make a version with the alternative 'bend'.....some more digging to do!
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Deleted User 192

Post by Deleted User 192 »

Did you do any digging with the washer jets while you were having a nosey?
stu-evs
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Post by stu-evs »

scott28tt wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 9:39 pm Did you do any digging with the washer jets while you were having a nosey?
I hadn't done (as mine work fine) - but I've just been out to have a look......and on this point there is no 'ground up' redesign at all - in fact it looks to be exactly the same system (very simple) system as used on the Mk7 Golf etc. - the same typical VW 'fanjet' washer jets - powered by a single motor at the source (i.e. in the washer bottle). There is one tube that feeds both of them - comes up from the passenger side then splits at the first washer & goes to the second (that routing is identical to Mk.7 Golf) - so a well proven design that "shouldn't" cause problems.

There is one dynamic - in that the passenger jet gets the pressure 'first' (i.e. it's closer to the motor) - but that shouldn't be a problem if the non-return valve on the pump motor is working correctly as there should always already be water throughout the entire pipe. Perhaps anyone having real problems should ask VW to check this non-return valve is functioning correctly. The only other problem could be a faulty/blocked or mis-aligned fanjet. These are easy to adjust the alignment of - have a look at the jet from the outside (i.e. with the bonnet down) and you'll see there is a flat 'blade' where the water comes out and a bigger space vertically in the carrier where it has a range that it can sit within - using a flat-bladed screwdriver you can adjust the vertical position by levering the blade of the jet up/down. Both of mine came from the factory set in the middle of the possible range - they spray the screen very equally - both in position & force.

The only other possibility is that some people may be used to 'one touch' operation of the washers in other cars (i.e. you pull and let go of the wiper stalk & the car does the rest for you - spraying until the screen is clear - I also have an I-PACE and that is how it works in that).....it doesn't work this way in the VW - you need to pull and hold the stalk.

Hope this helps!
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Deleted User 192

Post by Deleted User 192 »

Thanks, I’ve driven VAG cars for most of the last 20 years so I’m used to holding the stalk and getting enough water on my side of the screen.
Jel
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Post by Jel »

The LH wiper is also positioned above the RH wiper at rest so it will have to be fixed mechanically. I'm surprised that this was such an oversight by VW. Once I finally get a date for the software update it will be on the list of issues I want fixed by the dealer.
Last edited by Jel on Fri Jan 15, 2021 1:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Deleted User 192

Post by Deleted User 192 »

Jel wrote: Fri Jan 15, 2021 11:05 am The LH wiper is also posited above the RH wiper at rest so it will have to be fixed mechanically. I'm surprised that this was such an oversight by VW. Once I finally get a date for the software update it will be on the list of issues I want fixed by the dealer.

My car was in the workshop this week, they said it was normal operation and there was nothing they could do - it is the same in my wife's Golf Plus so a "VW thing" more than an "ID3 thing".

I have however queried it with the VW UK Executive Office who are doing some investigation.
Henry
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Post by Henry »

I fear the set up has many aspects that make it for LHD: different length blades, order of movement, more washer fluid to left. I think they just saved money by not doing RHD set-up - similar to them not moving the fuse box.
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pdk42
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Post by pdk42 »

I sent an IM to VW on their Facebook page about the wipers and got this:

Wipers.png

Wipers2.png

hwhbev
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Post by hwhbev »

pdk42 wrote: Fri Jan 22, 2021 11:02 am I sent an IM to VW on their Facebook page about the wipers and got this:

I wonder if Team VW have ever driven a right-hand-drive ID.3 in the rain..... :roll:
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