Hi Everyone
This morning I went to change my wiper blades and noticed a small piece of metal sitting loose near the base.Long story short: it’s the spline key (insert) that sits inside the wiper arm. It’s what actually allows the motor's shaft to "grab" the arm and turn it.

I’m lucky I caught it. If that piece falls out and you don't notice, your wiper motor will just spin while the arm stays still (or worse, it’ll strip the internal teeth of the arm). Apparently, these are just held in by friction/tension and can easily fall out if you lift the wiper arm to clean the glass or change a blade.

My Fix: Everything looked to be in good shape, so I put a tiny dab of adhesive on the back of the clip to keep it seated in the arm. I made sure to keep the splines clean so they still "bite" into the shaft properly.

Anyone else experienced this?

 

It's such a bad/cheap design. if the viper arm hub, the "pocket" for that key was blind (i.e. it had a floor or a lip at the bottom), the piece physically couldn't fall out even if the tension failed. Instead, they chose a through-slot design. I bet it's cheaper to manufacture.

 

The key is not needed. It’s for alignment during factory assembly. The splines are what keep the arm from spinning on the shaft.

 

The viper arms are not near as robust as the python arms...

 

Did you have the wiper recall?

 

oh really? Well that shed a piece of relief (in case I lost it in the future)

 

no, no recalls for viper. Only outstanding recall has something to do with fuel pump, last I heard they don’t have parts…

 

My wiper blades are in good shape, so I've never thought of replacing them.
Why would you remove the whole arm just to replace blades? Or is that another inunearing improvement?
Please Lord, keep the vipers away from me.

 

I didn’t remove the arms to replace the blade, I removed them after I noticed the locking pin and didn’t know where it belong. Figured out after removing the arm.