Replacing wiper arms - 2012 JSW

So side effect of sitting idle while my '12 was in diesel purgatory is that the black wiper arms took a sun bath beating, was not terribly noticeable 6 months ago but multiple car washes later the paint on them is starting to flake off. The arms themselves are not too terribly expensive (maybe $110-$120 for both - OEM VW) or I could just yank them and paint them.

Has anyone pulled these before to paint or replace? My concern is the difficulty getting them off the spline due to limited clearance with the hood in the way.

You should open the hood first, as high up as possible, then remove the wiper arms off the spline.

A little PB blaster works nicely.

I'd paint first, thus saving myself the $120. If that doesn't work to your liking, you can buy new ones.

I removed the wiper arms to run some wiring. Came off easily the first time but I had to redo something. Second time I had to get a wiper arm puller. Was pretty inexpensive and worked well. I didn’t have any problem with the hood open normally but it is a bit of a tight space.

For that price I'd pull and paint them. Soak the bolt overnight in PB B as mentioned above, and it might be good to have an inexpensive arm puller on hand ($7 Amazon). AARodriguez' FixMyVW site (also in GA) posted a MkIV video, but there are lots of MkV videos available:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKQFxgSGuPA&t=160s

I too have removed arms in just such fashion. I inherited a puller. Repaint and thin no more! Just make sure you measure the gap on the edge of the arms so that they sit correctly or you may have over swipe.

Back >25 years ago, I pulled the wiper arm (yes there was only one wiper arm and wiper for the windshield) off my '80 Scirocco, because it was sun faded and showing shiny metal through the black paint as described above. Part of a rattle can of Rustoleum Flat Black is all it took to look like new... At that point in life, I was a relatively "poor", starving college student. If I had to do this today on my wife's 2013, I'd rattle can it, because I have to remove the wiper arms either way, so why not paint what I already have???

Thanks everyone for the info! Will probably try the spray paint method and will definitely measure the park location (white out paint on the windshield might work well for this).

I'll let you guys know how it goes!