BMW E36 Forum

My wipers seem to suddenly have a mind of there own. This is my problem:

My wipers are in the home location, i switch them on to the first setting and they go mad! they just carry on going and going and anything that i do just dont make any difference, then randomly they will stop in any position and then nothing, they wont respond to anything for about 10 min and then i try again and they will kick into crazy mode and i cant turn them off...... I live in England and its winter so i kind of need them!

I dont think its the motors or the fuse's because the wipers work fine when they want to,i'm thinking its a short somewhere.....

I'm planning on working on it this weekend to get it fixed.

Has anybody ever had this problem or any suggestions for solving this problem?

Thanks Luke

Hi,
I have a similar problem with my '96 318 ti.
I replaced the wiper module which is behind the glovebox, but this made no difference.
However I know there is a 'park' position microswitch on the motor which is prone to failure.
I found this post on the Pellican parts forum, hope it helps! -

"[color=#0040FF]I had a very similar problem with my 1997 318Ti. After approx 10 min the wipers would stop in any position on the windshield. If I did nothing and kept on driving, after something like 5-8 min they would restart on their own, and fail again... If I stopped, turned off the engine, and started the car again, they would reset right away and back to failing after few min.

Each time, the first sign was when I cleaned the windshield - the wipers would miss the 3 wipe cycle and wipe 4-7 times.

I replaced the wiper control module - no help. I suspected the motor. The third time I had the wipers apart and the motor out, I thought it looked OK, almost like new! I decided to bend a little the steel arm of a microswitch that is mounted under the motor cover, and probably tells wiper electronic module the motor is in a rest position, anyway, gives a full rotation "complete" signal.

I bent it just a little, but enough to make sure the contact inside the microswitch is made each time a plastic pointer on the motor presses the arm.

Since then the problems are gone! It has been 3 months and the wipers never malfunctioned.[/color]"

This was posted by a member of that forum called Wlodek back in Dec 2005.
I will be trying it tomorrow and will let you know how I get on.

Success!

I removed the wiper assembly using the Bentley manual. It was a bit fiddly, but only got a few scrapped knuckles. Unclip the black plastic cover on the motor and there is the switch. I bent the metal arm of the switch up towards the centre of the motor spindle a few millimetres so it would make better contact with the plastic pointer in the spindle housing as it goes round. I then re-assembled the wiper assembly and tested the microswitch by doing a continuity test with a meter from the green wire on the motor plug to the metal housing of the assembly and turning the motor by hand to make sure the switch went on and off.[attachment=0]318 wiper motor.jpg