91 Ls400 Wiper Arm Losing Contact

[lex4me]

My 91 LS400 wipers are getting worse and worse at cleaning the upper portion of the windshield during a swipe - the wipers never contact the glass. I have replaced the wipers with two different brands to no avail. I am thinking that the spring on the arm has gotten weak. Has anyone been able to find a replacement spring, done something to tighten up the spring, or done anything other than go to Lexus to get a new arm? None of the after-market houses seem to carry the replacement arm and Lexus wants a small fortune. Please advise.

Ed - using RainX for now.

[Reyi]

This probably isn't your problem, but if it is, you'll be thankful because the fix is free. I have a 94LS400 and also use RainX wipers (they rule, huh?). Anyway, I recently noticed the top of the windshield wasn't being wiped and also that when the left wiper got to the bottom of its stroke (over the the right-bottom-center of the windshield) it would sort of skip and not wipe there either.

Well, I stared at the wiper while it worked for a while and noticed that the bottom of the blade also seemed to be wiping lower than normal. That made me realize that it wasn't sitting as high up on the arm as it should be (or at least I hoped that was the problem).

Well, that WAS the problem. All I had to do was basically yank up on the wiper and make sure it was all the way pulled up on the wiper arm. SHAZZAM!!! Good as new.

Like I said, it sounds like your problem might be different, but I hope it's not.

[lex4me]

Interesting observation. I did notice that the passenger side wiper was not fully engaged in the wiper arm and was able to pull it out further and lock it in place. The driver side wasn't fully engaged either, but no amount of pulling on it would engage it as the housing remains in the way. Perhaps the folks at rain-x didn't engineer their blade holder properly?