The Windshield Wiper Enigma, Pt. 2

Friends,

Professional bloggers roll out topical series, with a new installment each day, week, or month to keep you coming back for more. Skilled amateur bloggers write related posts in sequence with maybe a little less frequency or regularity, but a continuity that keeps their readers entertained and intrigued. I wait a year and a half to write an unexpected, unannounced follow-up piece to an inarguably pointless post.

That's what you get at Tangent Space(s). Thanks for reading anyway.


Some background information
That I would even try to bring you up to speed on this is absurd

In the calendar year of 2011, I drove my friends' SUV while they were overseas. In the spring, I noted how laughably inadequate the three windshield wiper speeds were. I blogged about it, and if you don't clearly remember that ridiculous bit of writing, I recommend you read it now.

If you're like me and too lazy to click a link, I'll give a brief summary of my findings. The three wiper settings had periods of 6.9, 1.9, and 1.3 seconds. The problem was that the first setting was almost always too slow, the second often too fast, and the third ran the risk of breaking the sound barrier and thus shattering my windshield.

Last winter I bought a car. It's a 2009, and after my old '97 and even my friends' 2005, it has been like a breath of modern, windshield-wiping air. But was I right that it's in the interval between 2s and 7s that the most useful wiper settings are found?


The Grand Experiment
In which we discover if my passionate complaining has any grounding whatsoever in reality

I knew that, with this brand new 2009 world of wiping, I'd be writing this blog entry someday. I didn't want my previous post and its numbers to make me biased, so I took some time to familiarize myself with the usefulness of the settings before I timed the periods. [Pretty crafty science-y move there, am I right?!]

My new car has 6 wiper settings. Four are grouped together, then there are two more individual settings, as follows:

1-A
1-B
1-C
1-D
2
3

The settings increase in speed, so that 1-A is the slowest and 3 is the fastest. It's a very wide spectrum, as in I could listen to an audiobook of Don Quixote between the wipes of 1-A, and Setting 3 is being researched by the military for the development of high-speed rubber blade weaponry.

At any rate, I found that I almost always use Setting 1-D. For most rains, it is the best choice. I occasionally need to up it to Setting 2, and for light sprinkles I use the slower 1 settings. So, just how fast are these settings? Drumroll please (man, people will call out for a drumroll for anything...)

1-A:  9.4 seconds
1-B:  7.8
1-C:  5.9
1-D:  3.5
2:      1.6
3:      1.2

Aha! So, at least for my visual clarity preferences, somewhere around 3.5 seconds is the most useful, versatile windshield wiper period. No wonder I was so dissatisfied when my best options were 1.9 and 6.9 seconds! Come on, car companies.


What about you? Any updates in your windshield wiper experience in the last year and a half? Any thoughts? Comments? Ideas? Limericks?

Jon