Sedans don't have rear window wipers?

[JcWoman]

I have a Prius hatchback model and I think I’d rather deal with a dirty window than have the stupid wiper. I don’t know the reason for it, but they put the base/motor so that it bisects the rear window, which means the rear view is very restricted. It’s the one and only thing that I hate about the car.

Here’s what it looks like from the inside, if you turn around and look.

And how it looks through the mirror.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

The El Camino is a coupe utility: neither a truck nor a car. I don’t think the Prius has that two-piece rear window just because of the wiper. It could be mounted through the glass without too much difficulty. I think it’s just a styling cue (though with or without it the Prius is ooogly, no offense).

[Telemark]

@JcWoman

I have a Prius hatchback model and I think I’d rather deal with a dirty window than have the stupid wiper. I don’t know the reason for it, but they put the base/motor so that it bisects the rear window, which means the rear view is very restricted. It’s the one and only thing that I hate about the car.

I don’t think that piece of frame is there for the wiper, they could have easily put that at that top of the window. I think that short vertical window segment is there for other reasons.

[Boyo_Jim]

@Chronos

The airflow thing would be great if it worked, but it doesn’t. The rear window gets nearly unusable in a good rain.

I tend to agree with this, at least at low speed. It’s an option I would buy if I had the choice.

[Boyo_Jim]

@pkbites

It’s not a sedan. A sedan was described as a car that had 4 doors but didn’t include vans, trucks, station wagons.

My understanding was that a sedan had a rear window solidly attached to the frame – it doesn’t move as art of the trunk lid or a rear door. In hatchbacks and wagons, the window moves with the trunk lid or rear door

[48Willys]

@Boyo_Jim

My understanding was that a sedan had a rear window solidly attached to the frame – it doesn’t move as art of the trunk lid or a rear door. In hatchbacks and wagons, the window moves with the trunk lid or rear door

Art of the trunk lid? As opposed to those of us who choose not to display art on our cars? I know that this is a typo, but it does flow.
You did mean part of the trunk lid, eh?

Minor nitpik/ Not all wagons have the glass as part of the tailgate. My Willys wagon has a lower tailgate that is hinged on the bottom & an upper window that is hinged at the top, as does my uncles 1954 Plymouth wagon. IIRC, All of the Chevy Nomad wagons were the same way. I think that this was mostly done away with in the early 60s. / end nitpik

I agree that the sedan has a fixed rear window. Of course, I am sure that there is some exception out there somewhere.

[JcWoman]

@Telemark

I don’t think that piece of frame is there for the wiper, they could have easily put that at that top of the window. I think that short vertical window segment is there for other reasons.

Ugh, I’d like to know the reasons. But either way I think I still want to slap whoever came up with the idea.

[usedtobe]

@Learjeff

No, “Tudor” was the name for the styling (such as it was), unrelated to number of doors. I learned to drive a stick on a 1929 Model A Tudor Sedan. 4 doors. They also made a Tudor Coupe, with 2 doors and a rumble seat.

By the 40’s, rumble seats were out, and “coupe” meant 2 doors.

IIUC, coupe applies to both 2-seaters and cars with back seats.

I drove a '29 Ford coach in college.

Here’s a 1930 on ebay

This is the usage of the term I know.

The word 'coupe was lost forever when cars with (small) rear seats were labelled ‘coupe’ instead of ‘coach’.

And a sedan has a pillar behind the (front) door and/or a frame around the window. If you roll down the window(s), there is still a structural post. A hardtop had no window frame or pillar - roll down the window(s) and the space from sill to roof is open.

Those bizarre '59 Fords with the retracting roof were ‘retractable hardtops’, not ‘retractable sedans’.

[LSLGuy]

@48Willys

… Minor nitpik/ Not all wagons have the glass as part of the tailgate. My Willys wagon has a lower tailgate that is hinged on the bottom & an upper window that is hinged at the top, as does my uncles 1954 Plymouth wagon. IIRC, All of the Chevy Nomad wagons were the same way. I think that this was mostly done away with in the early 60s. / end nitpik

I agree that the sedan has a fixed rear window. Of course, I am sure that there is some exception out there somewhere.

Lots of current SUV-ish quasi-wagons have windows hinged at the top and gates hinged at the left. The Jeep Liberty & Cherokee come to mind.

The really fun ones IMO were the late 70s GM deluxe wagons where the glass retracted downwards into the gate, then the gate could either swing down on bottom hinges OR swing open horizontally on left-side hinges.
As to sedans with fixed rear windows …

In the 1962-ish timeframe there was a sedan with an electric roll-down back window. Not rear side widows; the big one transverse across the back. Here’s a pretty good page about them: Curbside Classic: 1963 Mercury Monterey Breezeway - The Cure for the Heatwave - Curbside Classic The best pics are well down the page although sadly none of them clearly show the window rolled down. The large center section retracted vertically downwards leaving the two narrow fixed side sections in place.

When I was a little kid our neighbor had one, as did some distant relative we saw occasionally. I *really *wanted my parents to get one; in So Cal we had the weather to have that sucker down all the time. *Tres chic *it was.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Boyo_Jim

My understanding was that a sedan had a rear window solidly attached to the frame – it doesn’t move as art of the trunk lid or a rear door. In hatchbacks and wagons, the window moves with the trunk lid or rear door

That used to be the shorthand, but that line is getting blurred. For example, the Porsche Panamera is marketed as a sedan/saloon and competes with other sedans, but it’s a fastback and the window is part of the trunk assembly.

[pkbites]

@Alan_Smithee

But a station wagon is still a car.

I didn’t say it wasn’t. You didn’t read the definition I gave correctly. Move on.

[Fubaya]

@JcWoman

Ugh, I’d like to know the reasons. But either way I think I still want to slap whoever came up with the idea.

It’s a feature, not a bug. The reason for the split rear window is that the hatch and upper glass have a very specific shape for aerodynamics, but the visibility isn’t all that great so they added the lower window to give more visibility. On most cars, that lower window would just be a piece of plastic in the interior of the hatch.

[Throatwarbler_Mangrove]

@Balthisar

Looking at Google images, it looks like the Evo 9 has the wiper shaft through the rear glass. There’s an image of a low-profile wiper motor mechanism mounted under the package tray in this page.

Packaging this on another sedan shouldn’t be all the difficult, but I’d worry about air and water leak prevention over the long term for something like that going through the glass. Cars have water drainage all over the place that you don’t notice, but in this case the water would drip onto the package tray, and any air leaks would annoying you inside the passenger compartment.

This is I suspect some quirk of Japanese market vehicle regulations. Many Japanese market sedans do have wipers. I had a grey market 1990s Evo that had a rear wiper. The US market models generally do not.

[Grim_Render]

I drive a Volvo S60 sedan, and feel the lack of a rear wiper keenly. When the snow gets above a certain heaviness, it accumulates on the slated rear window at any speed I can drive in that kind of snow. The rear window quickly becomes useless in some types of weather.