Yep, I've had both those issues. The wire on the steering column, took me ages to find mainly because you don't use them much and you needed the heater on volcanic, that's when it softened the cable and allowed it to make contact.
The washer motor doesn't like sitting with screen wash which is old.... it looks fine in the bottle but down in the pump body it's growing things. Stupidly I used to make sure the concentration of the wash fluid was strengthened for over winter storage, I now drain it down and dry it out!
