Difficulty / Worthiness of Monowiper swap on W201
 

My '84 has a single, non-oscillating wiper blade.

It needs a new windshield.

I thought this might be the time to change to the oscillating wiper because of the rare nature of this early assembly and windshield.

or is the oscillating wiper a curse and eventually prone to failure?

Changing it out whenever is not that hard. It's just a bunch of trim pieces. I'd leave it as is.

I have two 85's here-- one is the oscillating type, and the other isn't. Both seem to work fine.

Mine is an oscillator and works fine, albeit a little noisy. I believe the oscillator does a better job as a wiper. When I changed the climate control blower assembly, I got to know the wiper mechanism up close and personal. Greased it a little and it got somewhat quieter. The oscillator certainly takes up more real-estate on the glass. If you have an oscillator handy, install it on the new windshield and keep the older one as a spare. The newer one should bolt right up.

really?

it bolts right onto the existing motor? all I do is change the wiper assembly?

So why is there such a big difference in the windshields?

aggravating!

motor/mechanism - all one assembly on the oscillator