Re: Windshield wipers have gone nuts...
Originally Posted by the.Santorini
Has anyone encountered the windshield wipers starting randomly...and you can't stop them? When they eventually stop...they stop in a random position except at their home position. Has this been encountered by anyone else and what fixed it?
I have a suspicion that the switch may be bad because when they go crazy, I spray some fluid to avoid them sliding endlessly on a dry surface. I got irritated and pressed the fluid spray a bunch of times rapidly...they continued running but returned to their home position after a few swipes.
Anyway, curious if anyone else has encountered this or if this is unique to my car.
My guess it is not the switch, the switch will start the wipers but when you use the same switch to turn them off they still keep going until they return to the park position. This means that they still are receiving an electrical current. The mechanism that returns them to the park position is a remarkably simple but brilliant invention. I think that you will find that the wipers always have power to them with the ignition ON, the multi function switch basically jumpstarts them to the continuous ON position.
Each time the wiper returns to the park position it opens a contact and stops power to the motor, but it also closes a contact which gets its power from the Multi-function switch if that switch is ON then the power makes the wiper go through another cycle, but if the switch is OFF the wiper has no power and parks. If the ignition is turned OFF with the wipers in mid cycle and the wiper switch is turned OFF the wipers will automatically return to the park position.
Its a long time since I took a wiper motor apart but that is the basics of its operation or at least it was and it is so simple I doubt it has changed much.
If the contact which the wiper opens at park is not open properly or it has a short then as it always has power to it, the wiper will operate. This puts the problem in the wiper motor.
Last edited by onehundred80; Aug 6, 2009 at 12:11 AM.