Rain Sensor Wipers

[Mr Whippy]

Good plan, will do

PS, loving the BMW Z4 so far. Really well put together, and designed to be nice to work on too it seems. No stupid fiddly jobs, everything seems well thought out for servicing later on... it has been a pleasure to work on so far, fixing little niggles!

 

[Mr Whippy]

Just bought three of these, so if all goes well I'll have a few spare if anyone needs one.

£3.74 each inc vat, and £1.80 postage, so not bad

Dave

 

[Mr Whippy]

Gah what a job. Cleaned off sensor, warmed glue in boiling water and rubbed off. Cleaned right back with alcohol and some 3k wet and dry.
Cleaned screen with microfibre, and thumb nail through it. Then cleaned with alcohol.

All good, so put new pad on sensor back, no bubbles, easy. Apply to screen slowly from one side and lap across. Bubble! Arse! Screen is not flat, and sensor plate is, so a bubble almost seems inevitable.

So, took all off and cleaned again, but this time did gel on screen first, perfect, but now bubble on plastic/gel bond. But this time pushing on back of sensor plate hard with a blunt tool meant I could remove quite a lot.

Still a few small bubbles but it's working now yay!

Still have one more pad, so semi tempted to have one more go, but might just see how long it goes as is for now.


Would like to say there is a knack to it, but I can't... I just can't imagine how you can put a flat item against a concave surface and get no bubble, fine if you could push it out, but any air gets stuck. Hmmm pondering using a fine wire now, so I can pump the air out by pushing on it, then slide the wire out. Hmmm.

 

[no fit state]

I think I ended up with 1 small bubble but managed to push it out....well it's not there anymore at least.

I was just lucky first time round

 

[Mr Whippy]

I think roof down will help lots doing this!

There is clearly a knack but it's a pita trying to find it haha!

Dave

 

[no fit state]

I think roof down will help lots doing this!

There is clearly a knack but it's a pita trying to find it haha!

Dave

I did have the roof down and a mate guiding me as I fixed it to the screen. That definitely helped!

 

[Mr Whippy]

7 - Prime the windscreen where the sensor is fixed with the included primer.

Just wondering if this came with the BMW sensor, or with the pads you bought from Winbond?

Any clues as to what it was like? A clear paste, a liquid etc?

Just thinking it might be ideal for me to get something a bit liquidy under the pad when applying to help displace and remove the air as I apply, and then when I apply pressure it'll just squeeze out?!

Mine is half working, but it's not perfect... think I need to get a 100% clean attachment

Cheers

Dave

 

[no fit state]

7 - Prime the windscreen where the sensor is fixed with the included primer.

Just wondering if this came with the BMW sensor, or with the pads you bought from Winbond?

Any clues as to what it was like? A clear paste, a liquid etc?

Dave

The primer came with the adhesive pad I bought from Winbond. It was a thin clear liquid.

 

[a11y]

Had the same problem with the auto wiper mode. A new expensive windshield with new sensor was out of the question, so I went to the my local BMW garage and reprogrammed the wipers to be manual. The manual mode with three positions on the small positioner inside the stalk works fine. Price for the reprogramming? Approx $80,-

Now that sounds VERY appealing. I hate auto wipers with a passion, had them on previous cars too and they never get the speed right IMO. I run with Rain-X water repellent on the windscreen too which I guess messes it up a bit too.

Does the small dial on the stalk allow you to manually adjust the rate of the intermittent wipe?

Anyone in the UK had this done yet? I'm tempted...

 

[Mr Whippy]

Thing with working rain sensor is they will wipe when it rains, and if they wipe quick enough, will do your lights too.

Makes all that stuff automatic, which is nice


Well, I didn't get a primer with mine from Winbond, might ring them again today and see if they can send me another two pads and some primer this time

I guess that liquid helps displace air bubbles and aid pushing them out a huge amount too!

Dave

 

[flimper]

I've just developed an annoying rain sensor problem in that even on the fastest setting they don't wipe quick enough, if at all :evil: An interesting thread, worth resurrecting.

 

[srhutch]

flimper you had your screen replaced recently, might be linked to that, I had to have mine replaced as dealer chipped when removing, and I thought about this problem then. I have renewed the warranty though so hopefully this is covered if required.

 

[flimper]

Yeah could definitely be that, will try and get it sorted before the years AUC warranty runs out in a few weeks

 

[Mr Whippy]

Have a look at the pad on the screen (from the outside)... have any bubbles developed Flimper?

Also, when they replaced the screen, I guess the fitter re-fitted the sensor to the screen? Or did the new screen come with a new sensor part already fitted? I'd not like to think a random glass fitter could do this job easily even with the glass off. It's clearly a little job that takes a little bit of practice to get perfect with this specific application... (you can see why BMW just replace the whole glass/sensor unit in one go as it's guaranteed to work)

Hrmmmm

Dave

 

[srhutch]

Dealer did mine just before christmas so it's to early for me to tell if all is OK, but after a drive on Sunday all seems to be well. I nearly asked the dealer about it when they said the screen needed to come out, but thought better of it as I am probably already on their computer as a PITA customer

 

[flimper]

I've had a close look but can't see any bubbles, maybe a slight patch of discolouration in places

 

[Mr Whippy]

Did the screen come with the plastic clampy thing attached already Flimper, or did the screen fitter apply the sticky pad and the plastic part, and then clip on the rain sensor part?

Wasn't it Autoglass who did yours?

It would be interesting to see if they do these in-house right before sending the screens out for fitting to cars, because it's a bugger to get right, and even more of a bugger to try sort once the screen is in the car!

Dave

 

[flimper]

I think the guy fitted it all together himself, don't think it was already attached

 

[Ducklakeview]

And today's job is...

Mike