Front wipers not working

[we350z]

The shit that breaks on this car never ceases to amaze me. So I'm driving up to Tahoe tonight on the 80 East during a massive rain / snow storm and all the sudden my wipers just stop working get stuck just slightly up from the down position. I pull over basically blind to the shoulder from the fast lane (which was scary as hell) and try restarting the engine but no luck. Tried resetting the battery, checked the fuse it is fine. Nothing. No noise at all from the motor. Rear wiper is fine. Sprayers both working fine. Went outside and opened the hood. Getting poured on as cars and big rigs wiz by. This sucks. Can't move the wipers by hand totally stuck and they both seem slightly loose but hard to tell. Thought about hunting for the tan relay under the hood but can't see shit and no flashlight.

I read they may have turned themselves off to protect the motor from damage and might reset themselves after 3 hours. Does me no good stuck on the side of the road though.

At this point I was debating whether to call AAA and have the truck towed or drive it almost 70 miles in this crappy weather. I put the hazards pulled out into the slow lane and somehow made it through flooded roads and snow. Not fun. Not sure exactly how I did it 2 hours of driving in a complete blur.

Probably the wipers came loose and got binded and now need tightening I'm guessing. I had them on full speed as it was really coming down. Really hoping they do reset and start working again. Somehow I doubt I will be so lucky. I guess it could be worse they could have gotten stuck in the up position...

Supposed to be storming all weekend. I got some rainx I should be fine around town and headed back Monday supposed to be clear then

Is there a trick to getting the bolt caps off?

Damn it.

[g300d]

The wiper linkage fasteners like to loosen and bind up the mechanism.

Open the hood, take out the plastic covers at the base of the windshield, and you will see which one/s it is, there are a few there.

Oh, and put some blue loctite on those when you get it sorted out.

[TiAgX5]

It's a good idea to remove the plastic cover and give each pivot point a spray of white lithium grease (I do this every fall). Spray a little in the rubber grommets that support the wiper arm shafts too.

[we350z]

Cool I'll look into this. What are the chances that the motor is not burned out?

[we350z]

Just tried them again still not working. I would think it would at least make some kind of noise.... Gonna check the bolts like everyone says to do.

[we350z]

Problem resolved and saved some money. Took about 30 minutes total to fix. All three of the bolts that secure the front windshield wiper were loose. The bottom one was so loose it basically came free caught the linkage and binded causing the wiper arms to lock up. I was unable to free the stock linkage from the bolt so I took my breaker bar with a 13mm bit and loosened the middle nut:



Now I was able to move the wiper arms up to get the linkage out of the way to tighten the 3 bolts.



The bottom bolt would not tighten just kept spinning so I was worried perhaps the thread hole had been stripped. It turns out just the bolt itself was damaged and I was able to replace it with another 10mm bolt no issue that tightened up nicely.



Just a word of advice take picture of where your linkage is so you don't get your wipers out of alignment and have to re-adjust them. Luckily mine had a block of ice form undeneat them so I was able to find the exact position there were stuck in (which also allowed me to re-tighten the middle 13mm bolt).

I need to pickup some Loctite Red thread locker to ensure these don't come loose again (though it took almost 100K miles to happen).

I also noticed my microcabin air filter is a little dirty probably hasn't been changed in almost 10 years going to order a new one. I vacuumed it off as best I could.

[TECN1K]

Good heads up for us all - to check and tighten those bolts.

I'm actually headed to Tahoe tomorrow - I'm in Reno this week for work.

We take our wipers for granted, it's just as bad as losing headlights at night.

[we350z]

Yup. I was worried I had burned out the motor but its all good. At least this was a quick and easy fix...

Enjoy the snow. It's cold as hell here right now.

Originally Posted by TECN1K

Good heads up for us all - to check and tighten those bolts.

I'm actually headed to Tahoe tomorrow - I'm in Reno this week for work.

We take our wipers for granted, it's just as bad as losing headlights at night.

[g300d]

Good job, thanks for documenting it for the community!

[g300d]

Oh, and I recommend blue loctite. You dont want to make those permanent, blue is plenty for that application IMO.