I was just looking over the service bulletins on my new alldata CDrom 
manual, and came across a Technical service bulletin describing wiper 
chatter/smearing etc.  Used a special tool to bend the wiper arm a few 
degress to reduce the problem.  You might want to go to the dealer and have 
them bend your arms ( i mean wiper) to reduce the problem.

Good Luck

Byron Peratoner

Tektronix, Inc.
Color Printing and Imaging Group
Finance and Accounting
P.O. Box 1000
Wilsonville, Oregon 97070

(503) 685-3539 Voice
(503) 685-3322 Fax
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Original Text
>From: SyncroHead@aol.com, on 1/24/97 12:05 PM:
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <vanagon@lenti.med.umn.edu>

Mine SUCK!  (Pardon my French, Phillippe)

I'm real dissappointed in the windshield wipers in both my 87 and 88
Vanagons.  They seem to smear, or chatter or both and just do a poor job in
general. 
I've swithced wipers by replacing the assembly sometimes and replacing just
the rubber insert at other times.  I've tried Anco, Trico (sp?) and right 
now
I've got fancy "Tripledge" wipers installed that have multiple ridges on 
each
wiper - supposed to be made of silicon for ultimate wiping.  They're just 
as
bad as the rest.  They do have a lifetime replacement warranty though.  
Just
send in the wiper and about $8 for S+H and they'll send you a new $10 
wiper!!
Some warranty!

I've checked to see that the wiper sits square against the glass, it does.  
I
also theorized that the wiper wasn't pressing against the glass hard enough,
so I removed the arm and shortened up the spring attachment clip to get a
little more spring tension.  This did not help.

No, I'm not just overly wiper-sensitive, I've driven in plenty of cars 
where
I rate the wipers as just fine, but not my Vanagons'.

Any suggestions?

Regards,
Jim Davis
87 GL Syncro
88 GL Wolfsburg
g