Jim Will

I've been home sick with the flu the past 4 days, last night I had to pick up my sister at Newark Airport at 12:45. It was raining heavily. Just as I reached the airport, my wipers seemed to skip a half stroke, and then settled back into stride. This happened again. Then finally, about 30 seconds later, they got completely intertwined and the passenger side twisted around 180 degrees and slammed back onto the windshield (wiper blade facing the sky instead the glass)
Needless to say, I couldn't use the wipers all the way home. Thankfully it wasn't raining much by this point.
Today, I checked this out furtner. The drivers side wiper arm was completely tucked under (lower on the glass) than the passenger side. Meaning that you couldn't pivot the arm up to check the blade without lifting the passengers side blade first. I pulled the plastic caps off of the arms, and found that the drivers side nut was loose. This allowed the arm to pivot approx 1 in lower on the cowl, and caused it to catch the passenger side blade on the upstrokes. Moving the arm back into position and retightening the nut fixed the problem. Has anyone else had this happen to them? It just seemed rather odd that it happened all at once.

Potomac-Greg

... they used to come without tangling -- and then one day they tangled badly. I guess as things wear down, tolerances change. After that, I got a 1" shorter blade for the passenger side so I wouldn't have to worry about it.

IIRC, the right side blade on our cars is an odd, curved shape and not a generic blade.

GapUp

I saw this as a recall on a MY01 A6
Sounds kinda like what happened with yours..

Component: Visibility: Windshield Wiper/washer

Defect Summary: VEHICLE DESCRIPTION: PASSENGER VEHICLES (ALLROAD). WHEN ACTIVATING THE WINDSHIELD WIPER UNDER HEAVY LOAD CONDITIONS SUCH AS FREEZING, SNOW OR HEAVY RAIN, ONE WIPER COULD BE DELAYED BEHIND THE OTHER WIPER.

Consequence Summary: IF THAT HAPPENS, THE WIPER BLADES, BECAUSE THEY OVERLAP WIPING AREAS, COULD BECOME ENTANGLED WITH EACH OTHER AND CEASE FUNCTIONING. THIS COULD IMPAIR THE DRIVER'S VISIBILITY.<ul><li><a href="http://www.autoweb.lycos.com/content/own/service/index.cfm/action/RecallsView/seriesid/18726">Wiper recall notice</a></li></ul>

paulroad

Yup.. on my Ford Explorer... any car with a single nut wiper arm can have this.

Kris Hansen

You have to keep that nut fairly tight, it's not a self locking nut.

Jim Will

I thought that I had messed up and the refill had slipped out of the blade, but that wasn't the case. The refills are the same on both sides believe it or not,(at least the dealer sold me the same blade for both sides) just the passenger side blade has the weird curve to it.