The Risk With Leaving Your Windshield Wipers Up In The Snow

During the icy and dark winter nights it can be really annoying to come out to your car and find your windshield wipers are cemented to the glass with a thick sheet of ice. For decades this has caused a debate among drivers: Should you leave your windshield wipers in an elevated position to avoid the ice, or leave them down and deal with scraping? While AAA recommends putting your wipers up it is, more or less, a matter of opinion, so we've set out to determine the benefits and downsides on either side of the debate to make your choid a better informed one. 

As with all things, both sides of this debate have their argument ammunition. Frozen wiper blades are highly annoying and can cause damage to your vehicle and wiper blades, the wiper lifters will say. On the other side of the aisle, lifting your wiper blades in preparation for a winter weather event is seen as highly annoying and potentially damaging to your vehicle, wiper-leaver-downers will debate. Somehow, they're both right. 

There are a bunch of reasons for becoming a wiper lifter. As mentioned earlier, chief among them is preventing your wiper blades from freezing to your car's windshield. With the wiper blades up and out of the way, you can easily use a snow brush and ice scraper to clear a windshield without pesky wipers getting in the way of your efforts. The pro argument is mostly about the convenience of cleaning the windshield the morning after a storm. If you are convinced by that case, you're probably a wiper lifter, but here are a few more pieces of argument ammunition to add to your arsenal. 

For those who leave their wiper blades down in a storm, risking them freezing in place, expensive and annoying damage could potentially result. For one thing, the process of chiseling them out of the ice could cause damage to your wipers, chipping the rubber and making them less effective in the rain. In some rare cases, your aggressive wiper-blade-ice removal actions can even cause damage to the car's windshield. In a worst-case scenario, say, you've parked your car with the wiper switch still on and the blades are now locked in place encased in ice. Then, when you crank the ignition, the wiper motor fries itself trying to budge a frozen arm. 

Like the wiper lifter, the wiper leaver-downer argument is largely one of annoyance. Sure you don't have to chip your windshield wipers out of ice, but leaving your wiper blades in an elevated position means they could be caught by the wind on a blustery winter night, leading to hyper-extended metal wiper arms, or bending the metal itself, or stressing the mechanism's internal spring and damaging the surprisingly delicate motor. If the wind catches them wrong (or through operator error) the lifted wiper arms could also slam down into a cold windshield, starting or exacerbating a crack. 

You could always spring for the extra-expensive one-piece beam-type rubber-wrapped winter blades, because they can help prevent icing over. If you think your wipers will last longer by putting your blades up, which AAA recommends, more power to you. If you think that raising your wiper arms will damage the internal spring, then keep them down. What really matters is that you don't drive around with a windshield you can't see through. Warm up your car, hit the defrosters and leave a few minutes early to get your windshield clean before you take off, and drive safely.