Wipers "jam" occasionally

S

sk93

Veteran
 Nottingham
I've got a fairly important issue that arose last night.

Firstly, the wipers are not always parking correctly.. they usually end up about 1 to 2 inches up, and have done since the day I got the car.
However, driving along in the rain last night, the wipers completely stopped at the "straight up" position and would not opperate.
The spray also stopped working (no noise, no water). I had to turn the car off whilst coasting and then back on for the wipers to regain motion.

A few hours later, the same thing occured, but they got stuck at 45 degree angle across the screen. I tried the ol' turn it off, turn it on trick, but it didn't fix it this time... luckily, the rain wasn't heavy at this point and I could see fine, so continued driving with the stuck wipers. After about five minutes, they came back to life through their own accord.

Has anyone got the faintest idea what could be causing this? As the weather is about to get worse, I'd prefer to know I will be able to see :D
 
same s**t happens to me. i believe this happens because the lever is left on the position where you would put the automatic wipers on. you're supposed to put the lever in the off position when done with the wipers.

kinda weird.. but its happened to me during heavy rain and it absolutely sucks @ss.
 
Yeah that "automatic wiper" which has to be manually turned on/off every time you start the car is odd.

Was just comparing the interior with missus' 118d and she's got:
Automatic wiper that doesn't have to go into "off" everytime engine's stopped
Dual control climate
Digital display on air-con
Keyless entry and engine start button
Arm rest

None of which my Zed has :o
 
Though all auto wipers had to be triggered so to speak, with the Z4 you can leave the stork in the same position and just move the dial to trigger.

The reason I though all cars were like this was if there was ice on the windscreen and wipers were stuck damage would be caused if the wipers just went for it.
 
no, this is happening even on "full whack" mode (stick all the way up).
After a minute or so, they just stop.. wherever they are on the screeen.

It's getting quite serious, as it did it no less than 20 times this evening, making driving in even the lightest of rain an absolute ballache and quite dangerous if it got any worse....
 
I don't think this has anything at all to do with the auto wiper electronics, since once when they go 'off' the wiper motor has 2 conductor strips that keep it live and running until it reaches the rest position. Same as when you manually switch off.

Since switching off the engine seems to reset them then it cannot be a physical problem in the arms or mechanism, so I'd point you to the motor itself having a dead spot, or the controlling electronics (of which the latter I know nothing)

Dealer or autoelectrician
 
Try this->
Fix walkthrough for faulty wipers:
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1115530
 
dbmm said:
Try this->
Fix walkthrough for faulty wipers:
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1115530
Click to expand...

funnily enough, I've JUST finished doing that and was coming here to say...
it works.

I've had my wipers on for over 15 minutes solid now and they've not stopped moving once!
I took some piccies of the steps, but that guide is almost perfect (don't need to remove the rubber strip...)!

that's over £180 saved, as BMW wanted to give me a new wiper assembly.
 
the same thing happened to me on my 5 series (e60). Dealer specified new wiper motor........still don't know if I got screwed
 
probably.. it's a very common "problem". :headbang:
how long ago was it, and do you still have the old motor?
 
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1115530
dbmm

Had a problem with my 2004 3.0l Z4 wipers. They started stopping in odd places across the windscreen. Then only worked intermittently, and then wouldn’t work at all. All within a few minuets! Turning the ignition off and then restarting the car, the wipers then started to function again, but incorrectly.

Tried the steps shown in the above link, wipers seem to be fine now. Easy enough to do took around 45 minutes.
 
dbmm said:
Try this->
Fix walkthrough for faulty wipers:
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1115530
Click to expand...

Hi everyone, thanks for posting about this and also for sharing the 'how to do it'. I followed the instructions and have a couple of other observations about it, the small plastic fixing screws (and lugs) that hold the large plastic cover in place are really hard to undo/remove - I think I would get spares of these if I have to do it again in the future. Also the plastic lugs holding the top edge (nearest the windscreen) are potentially fragile - I had to use some glue to fix these back. However I followed all the instructions and put it all back together again and tested it - seems to work a treat. It was also good to clear out the debris (mainly leaves etc) that has collected over time and clean out the plastic drainage areas.

So I felt very smug - knowing that I haven't had to pay a garage to do it for me 8)
 
Had to do the same to mine not long ago when the wipers failed to park in the correct position, once you take the wiper unit out of the scuttle and take the rear cover plate off (six screws) it reveals the contact plate and all the grease that has migrated from the worm drive and contaminated the contact plate. A good clean of the plate and contacts will restore the correct parking position. Well worth an annual inspection and a clean out of the scuttle and its drains at either end and the centre drain, mine was completly blocked with a build up of silt.
 
Did this at the weekend.Perfect instructions and a job well done, windscreen wipers working perfectly. Who thought putting those 4 plastic screws in the scuttle was a good idea though.
 
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