Sunday, April 6, 2014

Upgrading the Windshield Wiper on my Subaru Outback

One of the things I really missed when I switched from driving my '89 Toyota Camry in favor of an '01 Outback was the ability to adjust the length of time between wipes on my windshield. It's very rainy in the area I live, so I was painfully aware of what I was missing. I debated about trying to use a microcontroller with a potentiometer to solve the problem but I happened across a wiper assembly in another Outback in an auto yard that had the adjustable intermittent timing. It came out of the steering column very easily and I saw that the controlling PCB was integrated into the housing of the stick, and I suspected that it would be compatible with my car since the control signals should be the same. I swapped it out in about five minutes and it works like a charm! Not sure why Subaru didn't just have this feature on all of their Outbacks, but glad that the upgrade was easy. I also came across some switches that fit into some empty spots in the panels on the car that I may have plans for...

1 comment:

  1. To control the wiper’s timing by just ticking the switch by the steering wheel is certainly convenient. Perhaps Subaru has already considered having this feature added to their future models. Though it appears it isn’t that hard to get this upgrade on your own. Thanks for sharing that trick!

    Lance Gross @ Royal On The East Side

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