Hello all.

I’ve had our Rapid Sport since new. The rear window wiper started having trouble and was sticking and stopping  3/4 of the way across. I can help it on its way by hand, but it would not complete a cycle unaided. 
I took the assembly apart and the mechanism was full of wet gunk. I suspect the washer water may have been leaking in.
I have cleaned and lubricated the system and the motor seems to be fairly strong. I certainly can’t stop it by hand. However, putting it all back together, it still won’t wipe a whole cycle unless the window is sprayed with water. The windscreen resistance dry seems to be too much for the system.

Do you think the motor itself is damaged? 
Is there any way of reducing the resistance on the window?

many thanks in advance, Alex

Have you put a new wiper blade on it? Could literally be that the old one is knackered and is creating too much friction against the glass. 

If that doesn’t fix it, then you probably need a new motor. But given you said there’s plenty of force coming from the wiper motor, and assuming the wiper arm joint is properly lubricated, I would still rule out the wiper blade first. 

Thanks Chris. I swapped the wiper from my polo and put it on the rapid. Even though it’s half the length, it still didn’t work. I guess it must be the motor.

The dealer has quoted £180 for a new unit. I would try and get a second hand one, but there seems to be multiple varieties of fixing for the same code.

With my rapid variant having such a short production run, I guess nobody will be inclined to stock mine.

Suggest you try a few indie parts suppliers like GSF etc. Reckon you can get it for less than that. IMHO it’s not worth getting a second hand motor as you have no idea how much use it has had (the same motor is used on a wide range of VAG cars, not just the Rapid).