Front Wipers have moved position

[karlak]

Our Polo 9n has just decided to have both front wipers sit about 5inch's higgher than they should do, when in the park position.

I cant think that they have moved position, well not both at the same rate anyway.


I can gently push them back down to the park position, but they will both come back up when the car is restarted or the wipers are used.


Any ideas ?

[karlak]

as above,

So I removed the wipers and re-positioned them to where the park position "should be" - But then they wont swipe the full screen and on the return to the bottom of the screen, they hit the lower trim.

So it appears that the motor has "forgotten" where to park the wipers.


Has no-one had or heard of this problem before ?

Cheers

[wildman_33]

Surely its just that the wiper arms need repositioning, i had the same problem except my wipers were hitting the a pillar, they can go out of adjustment when they are obstructed for example if snow is on the windscreen.

[karlak]

Surely its just that the wiper arms need repositioning, i had the same problem except my wipers were hitting the a pillar, they can go out of adjustment when they are obstructed for example if snow is on the windscreen.

Yep, I thought this to,

But, if i reposition the wipers to the correct parked position, they then fail to sweep up to the A-Pillars and hit the lower windscreen trim on the way down. I suspect the motor has a way of "knowing" the park position and this is what has gone wrong.

[RUM4MO]

I'd agree that it must be a "parking position" issue! But what exactly? The motor rotates continuously when switched on and this gets translated to side to side motion by the design of the linkage. If there is an external error it will be between the motor and its first attachment to the combined linkage. If its an internal issue then that would involve opening up the motor and seeing what it looks like inside - maybe just needs cleaning up the parking contact strip.

[benmkiv]

Maybe this can be done with vagcom?

[RUM4MO]

Maybe this can be done with vagcom?

Steady there!

[karlak]

I have a VAGCOM/VCDS, so may pop it on tomorrow to see if there are any faults. Never even thought of that - Doh!

The only thing that has been done to the car recently was to fit an aftermarket stereo,, but can't imagine for a moment that this has caused any issues.

[benmkiv]

Was just a suggestion mate :p might not work

[fonzooorooo]

I've got a similar issue to this on my B4 passat.... Wipers work fine, sweep where they should, but when they park (only from intermittent on mine, but often they do it from "normal" wipe too, so I've been told) they stop a couple of inches up the screen... Apparently, there's a reference disc in the wiper motor assembly which gets dirty. Strip, clean, reassemble fixes it. So I'm told.

This may be relevant, maybe not... I doubt the design's changed much!

[RUM4MO]

That sounds almost like what, I was told, the Montego did, ie it parked its wipers down out of the way to reduce drag, but when on intermittant, they parked higher up - that must have been the only inovative concept to have come out of BL!

I'd think you would be right in as must as not much will have changed in wiper motor designs over the past 20 years - except that the wiper arm spindle assemblies no longer have bronze bushes, and that is why lots of them seize up as the car gets older, must try to clean and relub my B5 ones before that happens.

[karlak]

Took the motor out and dismantled it. The sweep postition contacts were covered with Grease from the pinion screw. Cleaned it up, popped it back in and all good again.. Cheers All

Also cleaned out the crap under the motor, was like compost so no water could drain away - How it hasnt rotted away is a miracle.. So two jobs done for the price of one