By some aligning of the stars, Kurt and I both happened to fixate on the wipers in our 2009 Honda Fit Sport. And I agree with him, our Fit does have puny front windshield wipers and you can't manually vary the intermittent interval, either.
And so I was caught off-guard when I noticed this neat-o convenience during a weekend of steady rain. When you shift to reverse while the front wipers are on, the rear wiper automatically activates, even if the switch for it is in the off position. Very useful for parking. (Toyota bag was used to haul veggies, not promote the brand, at least not directly.)
Erin Riches, Senior Editor @ 17,844 miles
shaddai says:
11:32 AM, 12/15/09
My (far more expensive) Odyssey does this too. It's great, except for the occasions when the rear window is actually dry...
What I really want is rain sensing wipers... once you are spoiled by those (on my other car) there's no going back.
pat1usmc says:
11:44 AM, 12/15/09
Not a fan at all. I'd rather control it. Is there an option to turn it off?
mjp16 says:
11:54 AM, 12/15/09
Does any new car not do this? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
subaru123 says:
12:03 PM, 12/15/09
My Tribeca has a feature where when the rear wiper is in the intermittent position it will go into the full speed position when put into reverse.
roadburner says:
12:04 PM, 12/15/09
My 1987 Scorpio had the same feature.
adavis2493 says:
12:57 PM, 12/15/09
When I had my Envoy, I remember every time I would turn off the rear wiper, it would stop at the bottom of the window, and a few seconds later it would go back into it's holder thing. The noise it made when it went into that holder drove me insane. Did anybody with an Envoy/Trailblazer/Bravada/Rainier have the same issue?
ocramida says:
01:08 PM, 12/15/09
Yeah I got the same reuseable Toyota Bag from the auto show in Boston. My Mazdas were none too pleased :-)
nomercy346 says:
01:16 PM, 12/15/09
Saturn Astras had it, so I guess it's in more GM vehicles.
@adavis I didn't think the noise was that noticeable in the Trailblazers I've been in. What else are they supposed to do anyways? Smash up on the holder on every wipe? You better be happy they only do it once. lol
zcalvert says:
01:43 PM, 12/15/09
My GTI does it as well; I wish it didn't. I'd rather control it myself. Might be possible to disable it through the manufacturer software system.
brn says:
01:45 PM, 12/15/09
My SUV has a rear wiper. I've never used it.
subaru123 says:
02:19 PM, 12/15/09
@adavis
My Yukon Denali had the same thing
crystalfivemt says:
02:20 PM, 12/15/09
What's the deal with you editors and the "puny" wiper? Size insecurity? The wipers do their job well.
firstwagon says:
06:11 PM, 12/15/09
"My SUV has a rear wiper. I've never used it"
How do you get the salt and grime off the rear window?
robs249 says:
07:57 PM, 12/15/09
@adavis
My parents Tahoe does it too. One time I was at a red light and shut the back wiper off and one of my friends shouted, "What the hell was that? Sounded like someone just slammed a door closed." It is kind of obnoxious, my Grand Cherokee's rear wiper doesn't do that.
clarkma5 says:
08:38 PM, 12/15/09
I, too, would prefer that cars not do this. sometimes your windshield is wet and your rear window is dry (it sounds stupid but it happens to me a lot...) and the rear window on a hatchback is also often dirty, particularly in the rainy months...so I'd rather not have my wiper blade scraping its way across my dry, dirty rear window just because my windshield is wet, thank you.
kronos says:
06:32 PM, 12/17/09
I've found that when in reverse, the rear wiper follows the front wiper setting.
If the front is on slow, the rear wiper is on slow. If the front is set to intermittent, the rear goes to intermittent.