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Living here in MA needless to say we get snow. I see some people flip their windshield wipers up off the glass when leaving their car say overnight. This is to make it easier to clean the snow and ice off the windshield when they return.
I'm wondering does this stretch the spring that holds the wipers tight to the glass, or is doing this a good thing that will not effect the spring at all?
Depends on the vehicle. On my F150 they will only move a couple inches, so the spring is hardly stretched any more than usual. I've never needed to do it on my GTO, so I don't know if they will stand out as you suggest.
Depending on your car make and model, check to see if your wipers have a 'winter mode' or equivalent. Many cars have a winter mode where the wipers sit on the window above the defrost vents instead of down below the hood line for aerodynamic benefit. My wife's '07 Lexus and my '14 Audi for example; to put the wipers in winter mode, you pull upwards on the driver's side wiper arm and they move up about five inches. Only reason I know about this (living in Florida) is because you also have to move them to winter mode before you can replace the blades.
If I lived in snow country I'd flip mine up too. Many cars have rain sensing wipers so they are "on" all the time. You dont want them trying to auto-on when frozen to the windshield.
Its a good idea to keep a small spray bottle of De-Icer fluid handy. It quickly eats through the ice and frees up your wipers, so youre not scraping at your windshield for ten minutes.;
But no if you can stand your wipers up as OP mentions, there shouldnt be any problems.
Also, keep in mind that when your wipers freeze to the window, you cant just rip them off. The rubber blade on the wiper can be easily damaged and never function properly again.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I do two things. First, treat the windshield with Rain-X which helps prevent sticking, and second manually lift them off of the window before turning them on just to be safe. Normally with heavy frost, ice or snow I'll warm it up enough to defrost before driving. I got burned once and had to replace a wiper motor when I burned it out with the wipers frozen to the windshield.
I live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and this is the first time I've ever seen it done. Everybody does it here and it is a strange sight in a crowded parking lot with all the wipers sticking up. I've never thought it was necessary, though. It does make sense, I guess.
You have to remember that until maybe the 1990's you couldn't pop the wipers on most cars, the arm didn't have the correct type of swivel. Back then people would put cardboard on the windshield and anchor it down with the wipers.
Then you have the GM (and other makes, probably) "hidden" windshield wipers that came to rest under the back of the hood (Mrs. NBP's 2010 Forester has them) which served to jam snow down onto them. I still want to kill the genius who came up with that particular design idea.
I do it when seeing neighbor's raised wipers reminds me. doubt it hurts anything.
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