Peugeot 206 rear wiper replacement

Washing your car is supposed to be good for it. Well, I beg to differ - attacking the back of my Peugeot with a sponge the rear wiper fell off.

Looking at the bottom end of the wiper where it's supposed to be attached to the car, the problem was obvious. The plastic part had broken in two. Worse, this had happened before as I found distinct evidence of old glue down there.

My first throught was to re-do the glue fix. Some slow-set epoxy, perhaps braced with some bits of wire pushed through the plastic to staple it together wouldn't have been too hard. A quick search on-line showed this to be a waste of time. Replacement wiper arms, complete with blade, were on sale for around 8 quid. I'd probably spend that much on a decent tube of epoxy glue and still have a wiper I was nervous about using.

A few minutes on eBay and 2 days later I held the replacement part. OK, it's not an original Peugeot item but the quality looked OK.

Fitting should just be a case of undoing the 13mm nut from the wiper shaft, pushing the new part in place and doing it up. Needless to say it wasn't quite that easy. Still on the shaft was the mazak (a type of metal) collar. I'd thought this would stay but it turns out it's part of the new wiper, so the old one had to come off.

I started with a few good sprays of penetrating oil (WD40, will OK, but get the real thing sometime as it's dead handy around the house and car) which was left a couple of hours to soak in. Next some mole grips were gently applied to the collar.

Mazak tends to go crumbly over time so I just waggled them back and forth until the collar fell to bits. Pliers would work just as well - you might even be able to pull it off whole although there's no need as it went in the bin. Neither shaft or collar are splined inside so should turn under pressure like this.

After that, I cleaned up the shaft a little and pushed the new wiper arm in to place. The 13mm nut was done up reasonably tight - no need as far as I can tell to go mad. In fact if you insist on going all macho with the spanner, you'll probably mess up the wiper motor. I aimed to push the arm down the shaft a little. A bit of oil or grease under the nut isn't a bad idea either as I may want to get it off again one day.

Simple and cheap. At least this bit should be OK at the MOT and the replacement looks better than the old one too.

Legal note: This is an accurate description of what I did. I am not a professional mechanic and these notes are offered for entertainment only. If you chose to follow them and things don't work, it's not my fault. Sorry. If you are at all unsure then get a professional to do the job. The car used was a 1996 UK spec 206, other models may be different.