Hey All,

I just purchased my 05' LR3 a few weeks ago and absolutely love it. Except...one thing. Neither front nor rear windshield wipers seem to be functioning correctly. The rear one stays in the vertical position all the time. Even pulling it back down to horizontal causes it to slowly creep back up about 30 seconds later. It does function while it's raining but not otherwise. The front windshield wipers aren't really functioning. One day they will work 100% - not slow or anything(so that rules out a motor issue I suppose?) but the majority of the time they refuse to work at all. I've had a little bit of luck pouring water on the windshield to activate them, but yesterday it was pouring down raining and they refused to work. I found a few threads with vaguely similar issues related to the actual switch on the dash...but would that cause them to sporadically work?

Thanks!

 

If you have the HSE, you most likely have rain sensing wipers; if you have the SE, you may also have rain sensing wipers.

The rain sensor is a 2" x 3" x 3/8" rectangle of plastic located in the fat thing behind the interior rear view mirror located in the middle of the windscreen. Page 9/17 of the pdf link below covers the rain sensor.

The fat plastic surround is two pieces of plastic and sort of unsnaps - kind of press on it and it may just fall off so put a jacket or something on the dash - not that the parts are heavy but somehow the NAV screen might get damaged if you have one.

With the surround off, look behind the mirror - that rectangle of plastic should be mounted tight to the glass. Sometimes it is not - has popped off due to time or a windscreen change. When the affair is not tight to the windscreen, (rain or no rain), the wipers behave in an erratic manner.

The position of the wiper stalk is one notch up from horizontal and that engages the rain sensing circuit. Two clicks up, the wipers are supposed to operate sort of continuously depending upon how much you have rotated the handle. One click down from the horizontal position is a one wipe feature.

As to the rear, the nut that holds the wiper arm on may be loose and needs to be tightened or the splines on the wiper arm may be sheared off, or perhaps the mating splines on the motor shaft sheared.

At worst, you need a new motor but I doubt it as it sounds like it operates. Also operation of the rear is sort of controlled by what is going on with the front wipers, hence get the fronts going first and the rear may sort itself out - except that I think the arm is loose for whatever reason.

The 17 page pdf per the link below explains how the wipers are supposed to operate.

http://www.disco3.co.uk/gallery/albu..._Operation.pdf

 

Thanks so much for the reply bbyer! I checked for the rain sensor and definitely do not have that equipped on mine. That being said, I forgot to mention the windshield washers aren't functioning at all either. This means that nothing that the wiper stalk controls is working...do you think the stalk itself might be the issue?

 

I reread your first post and you say that the front wipers will function on occasion - that being when you do not need them I presume.

In the engine compartment, these is a fuse box. Even if F29E, a green coloured 30 amp fuse seems OK, replace it.

I assume that will not solve the problem but a fuse that looks good and tests OK but is perhaps intermittent - that's a problem.

Also there are two relays in that same fuse box that are tied to the front wipers. I do not know which two they are however and the little pictures are not all together clear in their meaning. R12 is probably one of the relays but the other one I do not know.

What I am getting at is that the relays can be most certainly be intermittent. Once you figure out which are the two relays, then swap them with similar relays from that fuse box. Make certain you number all the relays before you start swapping so you can put them all back where they originally were.

Also with a volt meter, some of the relay socket pins should show voltage. On the side of each relay is a wiring diagram so you should be able to figure out the hot pin location. That may be a way of testing the operation of the stalk as I know nothing about how it works other than a loose connector somewhere in the steering column area.