Average Cost of Windscreen Wipers and Common Wiper Repairs 2024

• Windscreen wiper repair costs
• Windscreen wiper failures
• FAQ

What is the Cost to Repair Windshield Wipers?

We’ve gone back to our ‘goto’ car—a 2016 Ford Fiesta—and asked a variation of main dealer and independent garages for a quotation as to what we’d be looking to pay to replace wiper blades, a windscreen wiper motor, a wiper motor linkage and a blown fuse. Here's what we found:

Cost to Replace Windscreen Wiper Blades

Windscreen wipers vary in style and ‘engineering’ involved. Standard wiper blades with four windscreen pressure points should cost less than flat wiper blades, which have a lower profile and more windscreen pressure points for better wiping and visibility.

If you buy replacement blades online to replace yourself, these can be found from £5 to £37 or so for a single blade (£10 to £75 for a pair).

Most main dealers offer similar parts, with a retail price of up to £180 or so including installation for a pair of front wiper blades (£150 for a rear blade), but the independents are quite a bit cheaper: under £80 to £100+. These prices can vary for other models of cars, too.

Cost to Repair Windscreen Wiper Linkage and Motor

The windscreen wiper motor was priced at £160 through an independent garage, or £200 through the main dealer (both prices include VAT) for the Ford. And our vehicle specialist found a stockist for cheap aftermarket part priced at around £60 (inclusive of VAT).

The wiper motor linkage told a similar story; all independents charged less than the main dealer (our expert couldn’t find an aftermarket wiper motor linkage)—£200 from an independent garage, £290 from the official source. We found the parts alone can range from £50 to £190 or so.

As for labour, again, similar rates apply across the nation, although there was an extra ‘London weighting’ for central London, but perhaps not as much as we’d expect. The main reason for the consistency is that garages use software with ‘RTCs’ or Repair Time Codes, which gives an accurate indication of the time needed to carry out the job.

Again, it’s worth noting that this doesn’t include any diagnostic time, just a straight replacement of the components. The mean labour cost is £95, with highest being central London (£117) and the lowest coming in at just £84. The most you would pay to replace both the linkage and motor (living in central London and using a franchised main dealer) should be £530, the cheapest fix came in at £428.

Windscreen wiper failures

The design of the windscreen wiper has changed little since its introduction, which could be as early as the first decade of the 20th Century, or as late as 1927, depending on where you get your information from. Today, we’ve seen minor changes to improve them, mainly relating to aerodynamic abilities, or material specification, but essentially, it’s still the same thing as it was decades ago—a rubber strip attached to a metal arm, that sweeps across your windscreen.

If your car is older than two or three years of age, there’s a good chance that you’ve had to replace the windscreen wiper blades at some point. This may have been done as part of an annual service, perhaps they’ve been damaged, or they’re just worn to the point of smearing the water, rather than clearing it. But what happens if replacing the wiper blades doesn’t cure the smearing? Or the wipers have totally stopped working?

Perhaps you need a new wiper motor linkage, or even a new windscreen wiper motor.

In the ‘good old days’, windscreen wiper motors were a serviceable item, meaning that you could take them apart, clean up, and re-lubricate them when they started flagging. Most were fitted with metal gears, and the metal cases were designed to be opened with the simplest of tools (usually just a small screwdriver). Modern cars are so very different to their previous counterparts; with a drive toward efficiency, clean running, and cost-efficiency, manufacturers are looking at every aspect to save money and weight, and this has resulted in non-serviceable ‘throwaway’ items, the wiper motor being a good example.

Typically, a modern windscreen wiper motor arrives at the factory as a ‘sealed unit’, which usually means that the case is some form of plastic, that has been bonded together (so can’t easily be opened), and contains plastic components and gears, with a minimum service life. Once they start failing, the only option is to replace the whole motor. (Let’s not mention the green issues with that).

You may wonder “Is it really likely to fail?”, and while the general answer would be no, you have to understand that car makers use millions of components in the production of their cars, so a failure rate of just 0.1% (which is excellent) could still represent a figure in the thousands. Aside from worn wiper blades, perhaps an occasional ‘blown’ fuse, it would seem that luck (or properly designed, engineered & fitted components) is on our side; windscreen wiper motor, or wiper linkage failures are rare.

FAQs

Methodology

The same with any ‘Cost of xxx’ information, there are numerous variations that can affect the price of repair—geographic location, make, model or brand of car, dealer or independent garage, or even, just what the exact problem is, but with a little research, we can at least give an indication as to what you might expect to pay. Some notes on the findings: