Living in Washington state windshield wipers get lots of use. A good share of the time a steady intermittent wipe does the job perfectly. I'm far from in love with the Lexus rain sensing wiper system. I am constantly flipping the wiper control to give it a wipe when the auto sensing unit doesn't do enough or cursing it when it comes on for little or no reason.

What I'm wondering is if it's possible to reprogram the wiper system to return it to a standard/manually operated intermittent wiper system. I know I'd be much happier setting them where I want and leaving it alone.

Thanks for any advice, Rob

Rob,

Is the sensitivity turned all the way up? How long have you had the car.

When I bought mine I HATED the auto wipers. However, over the years I've come to really like them.

Had it since last spring which in Washington is plenty of time to try out the wipers. I've got the sensitivity all the way up.

Another annoyance of mine is the lack of exterior courtesy lighting when you disarm the alarm in the dark. My wife's several year old GMC is nice when you approach in the dark and the exterior lights come on at a push of the remote, one of several user customizable features. It's beginning to register with me that the Japanese build a good solid car but don't have near as many of the user customizable features figured out as the Americans do.

I have a 2007 ES 350.
But IS IT POSSIBLE to disable the rain sensing wipers? I miss the manually controlled wipers and want a way to turn off the automatic feature. The "off" text on the wiper control stem is apparently useless.

drill a hole into the sensor?
lol kidding here

Yes...here in Texas we have drizzle too! Lexus "rain sensing" wipers are a JOKE. They suck. I want my ES300 intermittent wipers back. I'm totally disappointed that Lexus would put such a poorly performing feature on their automobiles. It shows that poor engineering and product testing was done before committing to production. A big BOO to the Lexus/Toyota engineering team for this lemon.

So I just spent two hours figuring out how to solve the problem. I won't bore you with the details but what I figured out is that if you DISCONNECT the rain sensor the ECM unit (which controls the windshield wipers) will think that the "rain sensing" option is not installed. In this case the ECM reverts to speed adaptive "intermittent" mode. Hurray! That's just what I wanted! Above 20mph the intermittent period will shorten and below 20 mph it lengthens.

The wire going to the sensor module has a latching connector. Squeeze the latch properly and the connector will unplug.
Presto! You're done! You now have speed-adaptive "intermittent" windshield wipers. The adjuster ring on the wiper lever sets the wiper period.

I call this the "Charlie in Texas" mod.

Pictures, pictures, please!

I got to try the wire disconnect. The rain sensing is a complete waste of technology and use.

LOL. The rain sensing wipers are one of my favorite features of my RX!

Yeah...like I said mine work great