Common thing to have issues with, I know, but I have a couple problems and couldn't find the solution by searching. Sooo many threads to dig through. Most of the threads I found pointed to the lens for the rain sensor being bad, and that's not the case with me.
But yes, I do have rain sensing wipers. The gel pack (or whatever is holding the sensor on the windshield) looks fine. Windshield isn't dirty, but it WAS replaced at some point, and it's not a BMW windshield. However, the wipers worked perfectly up until a few months after I bought the car. Both of these problems started happening around the same time.
Problem 1: Wipers don't reset to the correct position. They go down all the way, then come back up and stop part way up the windshield. You can push them down, by hand, to where they're supposed to be, but they never stop there on their own. I tried pushing them to the correct position and unhooking the battery, thinking maybe the computer would re-learn where they're supposed to reset to, but that did nothing. What could've caused this to just suddenly happen? Is there a way to reset them back to where they should be?
Problem 2: Wiper speed and frequency. Video link below (can't get the tag to work), but here's a description.
In the dry (no rain), turning the wipers to position one causes them to swipe once, like they should. BUT, afterward, they swipe every 5 - 10 seconds, at a regular interval. The timing of the interval changes each time I turn the wipers on. Moving the rotary / interval switch has absolutely no effect. When it's actually raining, they always swipe twice in a row, seemingly whenever they feel like it. Again, rotary switch has no effect. I pulled the fuse for the rain sensor (41) and it didn't change a thing
Also, I don't know if our cars are supposed to have automatic headlights triggered by the sensor like the newer BMWs do, but mine have never worked if so. Edit: Just did some more research on this, mine has a 9/2000 build date even though it is a 2001, and apparently light sensors didn't come until 10/2001?
Any help would be greatly appreciated as it's been raining almost every day here, and the snow is only a couple months away I have just been using a combination of position 4 (move the stalk down) and position 2 (low speed) but this is getting annoying!
08-12-2014, 05:09 PM
I have just been using a combination of position 4 (move the stalk down) and position 2 (low speed) but this is getting annoying!
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