Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Do the heated wiper blades do anything?

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.

wayner

Active Member
Oct 29, 2014
4,294
1,787
Toronto
Today I had my first real experience driving in a lot of snow. It was somewhat unusual in that it was snowing heavily and very cold at about -15C. I had the heated wipers on the entire time and also had the Windshield defroster going pretty much the whole time. But my wipers still got icy and didn't work very well. Shouldn't the heater wiper blades stop this from happening?

Or is this just an extreme case with bitter cold and heavy snow at the same time that the car just couldn't cope with?
 
They're only marginally useful. When the wipers are running the blades only pass a fraction of the time in the heated area. To compensate in severe conditions you really have to blast the traditional fan defroster.

It would help if the app allowed you to pre-heat the wipers. During the pre-heating phase, if it's cold enough you can have a perverse problem of melted snow on the upper windshield running down and freezing in clumps around the wipers!
 
Wayner, that heated wiper implementation might be good for California but in our icing conditions it most likely will not be enough heat to melt any ice above the wiper parking area. If you look closely at the bottom of the windshield, you can see the single embedded heating wire.
 
It would really be nice if the heated wipers went on with the rear defroster like the side mirrors. It is a pain to have to go to the "winter" screen to turn them on. As others have said, it would also be nice to be able to turn this heating on with the App when preheating.
 
  • Like
Reactions: David29
Wayner, that heated wiper implementation might be good for California but in our icing conditions it most likely will not be enough heat to melt any ice above the wiper parking area. If you look closely at the bottom of the windshield, you can see the single embedded heating wire.

I dare say that the designers have never seen winter outside of their television screens. If they had been through even a DFW winter, they'd know that the channel the wipers sit becomes a solid ice cube and would have designed it differently.
 
  • Like
Reactions: David29
Believe me the cars are a LOT better than when they were first delivered. They decided to forgo having directed vents on the dashboard, probably for cosmetic reasons. Well that was a total disaster - the window would keep fogging over in front of the driver, and the driver's side window kept frosting over.

To their credit they came up with replacement dashboards in no time flat, and service replaced them on every car that came into Canada without them. Makes me think they originally designed with them, then somebody (aka Elon) wanted them to get rid of them and make it smooth looking. They still deliver southern cars that way, I believe; the directed vents are now part of the cold weather package.

Also the HVAC controls were really dumb. Their default operation was to defog the windshield, and then once the cabin was at temperature dial back the air flow until the car fogged over solid. They also reset back to those stupid default settings all the time. The way they work now is soooooo much better.
 
Sounds like the Cold weather package is a waste of money. Glad I didn't get it. As for the rear seat heaters, it comes down to who really needs them!
Rear passengers really wouldn't even know about them so they wouldn't miss them.
The car is simply the best in the market but there are some ridiculous options that are strictly for looks and completely not needed. Only fellow Tesla owners might notice.
Items that stand out would be the Alcatana headliner (not sure of the spelling) and the interior lighting option. Nobody notices these things.
The turbine wheels option to me is also not necessary as the stock wheels look fantastic and non Tesla people go "wow!" when they see them. Only fellow Tesla owners would notice the difference between stock wheels and Turbines.
The Mercedes S Class 550 model has wheels similar to the Tesla stock wheels and those are considered top of the line.
Don't get me wrong, if you want the Turbines, go for it, but in my opinion, you are only impressing yourself and other Tesla owners and of course having what you want is most important but don't get those options to impress outsiders as they wouldn't even notice.
 
Sounds like the Cold weather package is a waste of money. Glad I didn't get it. As for the rear seat heaters, it comes down to who really needs them!
Rear passengers really wouldn't even know about them so they wouldn't miss them.

Rear heated seats are really important to me. I'm always hot and I have a wife and 3 daughters that are always cold. With the rear heated seats we all stay comfortable. Mine get a lot of use in the winter and it saves on using the battery for more cabin heating. Saying if you don't know about an option you don't miss it makes no sense to me.
 
Wayner, that heated wiper implementation might be good for California but in our icing conditions it most likely will not be enough heat to melt any ice above the wiper parking area. If you look closely at the bottom of the windshield, you can see the single embedded heating wire.

Yeah, the few times I've used this feature, I've never found it to work very well.

Again - silly me. I thought that the wiper blades themselves were heated to stop the snow/ice buildup that you often get on wiper blades.

This is probably fortunate for us, since replacing them would be crazy expensive if they had embedded heating elements!

The Mercedes S Class 550 model has wheels similar to the Tesla stock wheels and those are considered top of the line.

I went for the turbines precisely because they didn't look like the wheels from every other OEM. MB, Audi, etc all have wheels that look very similar to the base Tesla ones (and I wasn't a particular fan of them either, especially for the premium they charged). The turbines had a truly different look and I liked that. I do wish they were 19-inch rather than 21, though, for purposes of durability and treadlife.