Hi,

Thought my recent experience with Wipers may be of interest to others, so here you are.

Had a new stalk fitted. Apparently a part that does wear out my car has done 32k miles. Neil at Ledgerwoods thinks they are a Land Rover part as he has fitted one to a Defender.

On a trip to Northern Ireland to do the Causeway route it rained quite a bit (no surprise there), all was well until we pulled into a car park and just as I switched off the engine the wipers commenced a sweep but stopped mid swipe. Came back to the car and the wiper would not move, got out the car and checked the fuse, which looked ok but replaced it anyway, still no joy. Didn't have a spare Relay with me (now carry one) so got back in the car and found that pushing the lever down worked, not as a single complete sweep but kept going until I released it, which after some practice I managed to time so that they rested near enough in the Park position. The weather cheered up a little so decided to leave fixing the problem until we returned home.

Wiper arms adjusted, ie an increased bend to shorten the arm and reposition the blades on the windscreen.

So after having the Stalk replaced and everything working as normal, I purchased a replacement relay (Online, but based on a suggestion on the forum), so I tested it. The wipers seemed to work but stuttered mid swipe and then stopped mid swipe. Expletive! I thought I'd put the wrong Relay in and stuffed them, especially when I put the original back in and they still didn't move stuck straight up. I booked it back into Ledgerwoods for them to sort out, but in the meantime took the connector out of the Wiper motor and tested the circuits, which seamed to be ok on the different settings of the stalk, so thought that the Wiper motor had gone. Informed Ledgerwoods who got a new Motor in for when I took it in and left it with them a few days later..

Ledgerwoods found no fault except that the wiper was touching the Hood Rail at the top of the sweep. They made the adjustments ad tested them with a water sprinkler lubricating the windscreen until they were satisfied that was the problem. I fitted the newer wipers a while ago myself and had no issues but on this occasion must have seated the hood particularly well on the top of the windscreen.

Now I don't know if the two problems are related, but the 1st fault meant I didn't look into the 2nd enough before sending back to Ledgerwoods. At least they were really good about it and didn't charge much for the 2nd time.

BTW the replacement Relay did work when I tried it again and is now located in a spare holder next to the existing one (another idea from this forum). Only one slight issue is the variable intermittent only works on 1 setting, but I can live with that.

Regards
Mark

I have a 'smartscreen' system fitted - it gives me a wash/wipe facility, and the ability to have an intermittent wipe (which I can set depending on how much rain - it logs the time between first and second wipes and then replicates it until I turn off.

The first one I had blew, due to increased amp draw from the motor. The cause was a grease clogged drive wheel in the motor, and a dirty tube/mechanism. I stripped them all down, cleaned them with brake cleaner, and then regreased with white lithium and all has worked fine since and the new smartscreen is working well.

[quote=Mark666]Hi,

Thought my recent experience with Wipers may be of interest to others, so here you are.

Had a new stalk fitted. Apparently a part that does wear out my car has done 32k miles. Neil at Ledgerwoods thinks they are a Land Rover part as he has fitted one to a Defender.

On a trip to Northern Ireland to do the Causeway route it rained quite a bit (no surprise there), all was well until we pulled into a car park and just as I switched off the engine the wipers commenced a sweep but stopped mid swipe. Came back to the car and the wiper would not move, got out the car and checked the fuse, which looked ok but replaced it anyway, still no joy. Didn't have a spare Relay with me (now carry one) so got back in the car and found that pushing the lever down worked, not as a single complete sweep but kept going until I released it, which after some practice I managed to time so that they rested near enough in the Park position. The weather cheered up a little so decided to leave fixing the problem until we returned home.

Wiper arms adjusted, ie an increased bend to shorten the arm and reposition the blades on the windscreen.

So after having the Stalk replaced and everything working as normal, I purchased a replacement relay (Online, but based on a suggestion on the forum), so I tested it. The wipers seemed to work but stuttered mid swipe and then stopped mid swipe. Expletive! I thought I'd put the wrong Relay in and stuffed them, especially when I put the original back in and they still didn't move stuck straight up. I booked it back into Ledgerwoods for them to sort out, but in the meantime took the connector out of the Wiper motor and tested the circuits, which seamed to be ok on the different settings of the stalk, so thought that the Wiper motor had gone. Informed Ledgerwoods who got a new Motor in for when I took it in and left it with them a few days later..

Ledgerwoods found no fault except that the wiper was touching the Hood Rail at the top of the sweep. They made the adjustments ad tested them with a water sprinkler lubricating the windscreen until they were satisfied that was the problem. I fitted the newer wipers a while ago myself and had no issues but on this occasion must have seated the hood particularly well on the top of the windscreen.

Now I don't know if the two problems are related, but the 1st fault meant I didn't look into the 2nd enough before sending back to Ledgerwoods. At least they were really good about it and didn't charge much for the 2nd time.

BTW the replacement Relay did work when I tried it again and is now located in a spare holder next to the existing one (another idea from this forum). Only one slight issue is the variable intermittent only works on 1 setting, but I can live with that.
CarBuilderSolutions sells a telescopic wiper arm, so you can adjust get exactly the length you want. As far as I remember I had to cut off a couple of cm to get them short enough, but all in all the fitting was a breeze.

Strange post from me.... Only the two last sentences are mine, the rest a quote. Sorry.

I swapped to the adjustable arms too. Much better coverage and less overlap.

I had a similar issue a few years back and it was simply poor contact on the wiper motor plug, which had worked its way out a bit.
I put a small cable tie around it and it has been fine ever since.

Rain X rain repellent and a clean cloth is a good addition to the toolbox in the event of wiper failure while out on the road.

On later cars (2014 on) a 6 pin relay replaced the standard 5 pin wiper relay Mark. The sixth pin has an orange/green cable which traces back to the wiper stalk and may relate to the variable delay options which you mentioned were not fully working now. Whatever, don't be tempted to use one that isn't diode protected otherwise the back emf when relay coil is switched off may damage electronics.

This Wehrle relay can be seen to the right standing alone from bank of six above high current fuses. Image is from Roadster but Plus 4 shows same used.



Markings are WEHRLE 60 201 002 12v / 5A

Water getting in the wiring at the motor can cause some interesting features. My 2012 lost self park and intermittent on a wet touring holiday.

My Plus 4 was OK last week in the wet, but interestingly, fast wipe was much smoother than standard speed, which judders and is noisy, despite using Rain x.

Hi,

Just to explain that the Variable Intermittent issue is only associated with the Spare Relay, the original relay works on all intermittent settings. The Spare does work on 1 intermittent setting so will suffice if I ever need it.

Thanks for the warning re diode protection, I just checked it and it has a picture of a Diode on the diagram on the side of the relay.

Best Regards
Mark