2002 A4 1.8

It was raining today, so surprise surprise I turned on my wipers. They were doing just fine, then all of a sudden they got confused and went a little haywire, then returned to normal. So, I kept driving with them on, no problem.

But, when the rain stopped I turned them off, they stopped, but in the wrong position - smack in front of my face! I couldn't see anything, on the highway, going 75!

Even when I use them on intermittent, they will work fine, but instead of pausing at the bottom of the swing, they pause when they're pointing straight up!!

????

So, now my car is sitting in my driveway, with the wipers pointing up. I tried pushing them back down while they're off, which works, but then I turn the car on again and it self-"corrects" itself back up into the straight-up position. What is going on!!??



I guess I'm going to go down there and unbolt the wiper arms and put them back on in the right position and see what happens?? I'm kinda afraid to do this because they wipe DOWN now, not up. So, if I go remount the arms in the down position, will they just try to go down and burn out the wiper motor? Or, will it realize the problem and fix itself? It's very very odd what's going on here

any help??????

 

Are they tight? Take all the crap off over the motor, and check the linkage and all that. Jeez. Craziness!

 

RAIN-X

Never used my wipers!!!! EVER

 

Man I feel sorry for you but that's a funny problem to have. I wonder if your switch could have something to do with it....

 

well the fact that they are stopping in the wrong place makes me think they just arent on the spindles properly... or your linkage has come sort of loose. Who knows!

 

haha amen me too but u need o go a lil bit faster on the freeway and the better it werks u can tell the cop that haha jk ..

 

yeah, they seem tight, and they are otherwise working perfectly... it's some strange stuff!

i'm gonna take them off the spindles while the car is off, and put them in the correct "off" position, and cross my fingers!

i'll update

 

you migh want to remove the cowl and check the linkage first. you could do more damage by just putting them in the "off" position.

 

Good call, so I'll post the solution in case anyone else has this problem, took about an hour to troubleshoot and fix:

You have to remove:
- wiper arms
- cowling surrounding the wiper spindles
- large flat plastic piece covering the area above the battery, the entire width of the car

On the top of the wiper motor there is a spindle with a flat metal bar/arm (about 3" long) attached to it, somehow this bar got loose on the spindle.
To fix the placement of the bar/arm on the spindle:

First, remove the nut holding the bar/arm onto the spindle at the top of the wiper motor.
Second, remove the bar/arm from the motor by pushing it straight up, and off of the spindle.
Third, turn on your wipers and let them run for 5-10 seconds, then turn them off. That is the off position for the spindle.
Fourth, now, put the bar/arm back onto the spindle, with the bar pointing directly at 90 degrees to the car, pointing towards the driver's side fender. Be careful not to turn the spindle too much while doing this. Push arm back down onto spindle until snug, then carefully replace the nut on top of the spindle. Make sure your car is OFF fully while doing this, or the wiper motor will try to correct itself. You will notice that you can't tighten this nut too much, because it will just turn the wiper motor. What I did was put on the driver's side wiper arm for leverage while tightening the nut.

That should work. It took me a few tries to get it perfect, and once it was, I welded that damn nut onto the spindle so this would never happen again! If I ever have to replace the wiper motor I will replace the bar/arm too, no big deal.

good luck!