ysong

recently the front windshield wipers of my 99 Subaru legacy outback does not work right. both of them sometimes can stuck in the middle. after a thorough check, I supprisingly found out that the gear box between the windshield wipper motor and the linkage is cracked. so my theory is that some one (i.e. my wife) turned on the windshield wiper while they were frozen to to windshield and the force busted the gear box. it seems like the piece belongs to the motor, I need to replace the all set. the repair shop want to chage 1.5 hour to replace the motor, but it seems not that hard even for me to do it myself. besides the linkage, there 3 bolts fix the motor to the body, plus some electrical wires. can some one give a advice if this is as easy as it seems? if i want to do it myself, where can I get the procedure? any caveats? thanks in advance.

It happened several times recently, the wipers were simply stuck in the middle of windshield during the rain. I had to push them down then the operation could resume for a while. it seemed that the motor was still working, because I could hear the running noise from the motor when the wipers were stuck. I also found out that when I slowed down (down to around the posted speed limit ), the wipers could work normally. So I kind of guess that the power of the motor is weakened so it can not fight the stronger wind when the car is drove around 80mph. do you think it is motor problem or the linkage problem? it there any thing I can do to fix it? it is 99 legacy outback. thanks.

I have exactly the same problem as Clark with my 99 legacy outback rear gate, only it passed the "intermittenly" stage and stay locked permanantly last week. (I just found this wonderful site today.) My question is how I can open the rear hatch door so I can take the panel off? turning key back and forth repeatly stop working now. (I almost suspect if I triggered the keyless-entry reprogram sequence by turing the key too many times.) Thanks.