According to the owners manual...if you have the "rain sensor" wipers option....they apparently do not go into the "intermittent" mode when stopped. See #2 (Normal Wiper Speed) & #3 (Fast Wiper Speed) in exert from owners manual below:

My rear wiper works fine. Has always wiped the window clean. Is there anything you like about an X5?

Mine works fine as well. When I first bought it, only the tips of the rear wiper blade were making contact with the glass. I took a quick look and the spring wasn't creating much pressure on the wiper. A little lube to the spring and joint and it works really well.

Mine worked like garbage even after lubricating the spring and joint so I just deleted it and capped the plug, and enjoy the cleaner look in the rear now as well.

Q, you are correct. I should have pulled out the manual. It states as you have pointed out - the feature does not work on those cars with rain sensors. Sorry for the tail chasing everyone. I could have sworn it worked....

Boy now I'm confused. When my wipers are set on auto (using the rain sensor), they slow down when I come to a stop and speed up when I accelerate. I remember reading somewhere (my manual?) that speed is factored in. Or... More rain hits the sensor the faster your going and vise versa giving the illusion the wipers are monitoring speed.

:iagree:

I know I've felt that it does that, but what I believe it to be is that when you slow down and come to a stop, the rain is often coming at the windshield less often. You can hit more raindrops at 55 than 5. So the rain sensor senses less moisture or fewer drops or however it works and slows down.

I credited it to mental trickery.

That's a good enough reason for me and I've learned to use it well for a number of things!:rofl:

But I've never seen any effect from changing the position of the rotary lever in the stalk other than it actuates one pass of the front wipers. Is it supposed to set the wipe frequency of the rear?

2002 X5 3.0 266,000 miles
2004 325i 116,500 miles

That dial is for the front wipers only. To adjust the rear you hold it on for the seconds of delay you want ect..... Idk......... Some thing too involved that I have yet to adjust.