<rant>
The first time the wipers failed, it was during a torrential rain storm which I had posted about here previously. The second time, wasnt as big of a deal since they failed as I was cleaning a dirty windshield.

But the third time, it failed at the worst time ever imaginable.

My wife is due with our second child on Christmas, meaning that she can give birth at any moment. This past Friday she had her final doctors visit and our first snowstorm of the year. By the time she had left the office, there was already a couple inches of the white stuff on the ground, but all was good - I had installed our dunlop snow tires the week prior.
She moved the wipers into the ‘winter’ position as stated in the manual and after an hour of sitting in traffic, the driver side wiper stopped in mid swing, but the passenger side kept going. After two swipes, the passenger wiper arm snapped in half and the stump lodged itself into the driver side. Momentum from the wiper motor caused the stump to shoot off the driver side wiper and smacked into our windshield.Yay! Left the car on the side of the road and I picked her up. Dropped the car off at the dealership and praying that theyre able to replace the broken parts ASAP since they cant give me a loaner.

Speaking of loaners, what sort of 'luxury' car dealership doesnt have loaners?? Their policy is to have people reserve loaners two weeks out! What?? Do they only have like 3 loaner vehicles?? Even Toyota (my truck) offers loaners and has a fleet of Corollas available for piddly service items like oil changes! Sorry to go off on a tangent, but Curry Acura is the worst dealership on the planet and I had to get that bit off my chest.

So.. we'll see what happens. They claimed to have replaced the arm + linkage before, but not the motor (as per the TSB). Hopefully they'll get it right this time.

One thing is for certain though. The days of this RL and our Honda/Acura relationship is numbered.


</rant> you can all go about your daily lives now.. i feel better

 

Got an update from the service manager. "The nuts holding the wiper arms are designed to back out and strip when theyre covered in ice and snow...", "...this is a normal occurrence and we see it all the time.".

Really?? So youre telling me that the wipers are designed to fail when there's ice on the windshield??

Cmon now.. wtf?

 

Huh?

Sounds like BS. It certainly doesn't sound normal to me. I wish an engineer would comment about this.

In the meantime....it's OK to vent, man....we're here for ya.

 

Picked the car up tonight and paid $185. Service adviser informed me that it was due to the ice build up under the blade (BS!) and that I should clear out the area under the windshield all the time..

so.. I'm supposed to pull over and clear out the area under the wipers while driving? Umm.. then whats the purpose of the 'winter position' of the wipers? Why even advertise sh-awd performs well in snow when I'm not supposed to be driving the car in snow??

Called client services and filed a complaint. I asked my adviser to note the cause verbatim in my file so that Acura can check it out.

 

I call

That's a crap excuse. That's like saying the washer fluid pump failed because there's dirt on the windshield.

 

Freezing rain this morning.. guess what failed again. Wife is 5cm dialated and 75% effaced.

Lucky me - curry acura cant do anything today and acura client services is closed for the holidays.

called enterprise and they're coming to pick me up.

 

Well...the good thing here is that the wife is 1/2 way to delivery! Keep that in mind.

Best of luck to you and the wife with the coming of the new bundle of joy! My little guy is 2 1/2 and we have more fun every day.

 

Quick update.

Had a baby boy on Dec 26th so our (broken) RL was out of sight and out of mind until yesterday. I brought the car into the garage and broke out my 200lb service manual and went at it.

The idiot(s) cross threaded the bolt onto the wiper arm!! There's also very visible traces of metal to metal contact on the arms - they used a pair of pliers on the damn things to bend them back into place. And charged us for new ones.

I brought the car to the shop down the street and they rethreaded the bolt and slapped a new one on.. for $15.

Got in touch with the regional representative today and voiced my concerns. Couldnt do anything for me, so I wont do anything for them.

I know that there are a few people on this forum who frequent Curry Acura, including RonJon, and I'm hoping my experience with this dealership stirs something up within them to consider their alternatives, albeit the other local Acura dealerships arent any better.

Goodbye Honda.

 

What? I can't believe it. What a dumb error.

Congrats on the little guy!