June 17, 201411 yr Is this a normal Subie thing, or should I start looking for problems? The wipers are very slow compared to other cars I've driven, like half the speed I'd expect. Also, the interval setting gets stuck sometimes. I have to pull the stalk towards me to get them going again. Dirty switch? Bad motor? Tired wiper elves?
June 17, 201411 yr The wipers on my Loyale are pretty slow. I'd be looking for a possible fix as well. But on the other side, I have not seen an old gen Subie with fast wipers.
June 17, 201411 yr Sounds like a bad motor to me. But any of the items mentioned should be checked, especially those damn elves.
June 17, 201411 yr you don't say what vehicle - probably not but in case it's an XT the wiper transmission gears have no grease by now and will eventually destruct internally. disassemble them and clean/regrease.
June 17, 201411 yr battery and alternator are good - poor electrical will slow them down? or motor. good call on older subaru's not having super fast wipers too. Edited June 17, 201411 yr by grossgary
June 18, 201411 yr Mine are slow as well, i had been thinking about putting a different motor on or possibly even toying with some different gears or something. This is as far as that has gone. Just thoughts. Nothing more. Maybe when i finish all of the other 62 projects or when they stop i'll look more into it. Let us know if you come up with something!
June 18, 201411 yr That'd be awesome if there was a transplant possibility where you could swap a wiper motor from a different car. I'd imagine a Toyota or Honda from the same era would have a similar wiper motor that could be made to work.
June 18, 201411 yr Seems a extra ground wire from the wiper motor to the firewall (scrape some paint) usually helps with wiper problems.
June 18, 201411 yr I might give that a try. Do I connect the wire to the ground wire for the motor, or just attach it directly to the motor? Does it matter? I've never actually taken a good look at the wiper motor in these cars. I just tried adding a wire from the motor to a better ground. Changed nothing. Wipers are still slow. Edited June 18, 201411 yr by jj421
June 18, 201411 yr Sounds like ground isn't your problem, but I've had good results attaching one end of a new ground wire to a screw holding the plate on that covers the gears, and then attaching the other end to a bare metal spot on the firewall.
June 18, 201411 yr Author Good ideas, thanks. the weirdest part to me is how the interval setting will stall. I'll have to do some poking around.
June 19, 201411 yr Author I'll need more time than I had to get into the motor, but I did find the plug terminals were showing some corrosion. I cleaned them up while I pulled the wiper arms off to spray-paint them flat black for smoother operation Things are better, though I didn't time the wipers before-and-after. ETA: Battery and alternator are fine, so I'm thinking motor or switch. Edited June 19, 201411 yr by mstr_pete
June 19, 201411 yr If it has old style commutater brushes, they would be worn out by now ... Edited June 19, 201411 yr by Bantum
June 19, 201411 yr I second the brushes thing. I cleaned my plugs and opened up the cover to the motor, cleaned up some of the grease that had got on to where the contacts rub on the drum(?) as well as took some fine sand paper to the contacts. Now I have intermittent wipers again; before, they would operate a few times, stop, maybe work again, maybe not. Now they work fine, except they'll move an inch or two...pause....complete the cycle up and down...move up an inch or two...pause...complete the cycle....etc. Better than being completely random!
June 20, 201411 yr The brushes actually ride on the armature and what you cleaned with sandpaper is called the commutator. I have about 10 old Otis motor generator sets i have to replace brushes on all the time and its a pain! I loathe carbon dust! Another good thing to get is some QD Contact Cleaner from home depot (or wherever) and clean the entire thing out, this stuff also works great for.cleaning any electrical part.
June 20, 201411 yr So I put a bit of wheel bearing grease on the joints on the wiper transmission a couple days ago. Today it was raining, and they did seem to be a bit faster, especially at first. I'm gonna take it apart and put a metric f*** ton of grease on those joints. Maybe it'll speed them up more.
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