Rain sensing wipers

[visionatsea]

Rain sensing wipers are slow to come on when it rains and may come on when it is not raining!!  Anyone else have this problem?  How did dealer solve problem?

[TrevC]

Hi Rick....welcome to the Forum

Not sure if its a manufacturer fault as such because it happens on my Honda and usually have to reset the switch to get it back on track.

Have considered if its a relay fault (timer function)...also worth checking the windshield to see if the sensor area is clean.

Be interesting to see what ideas come through

Cheers  Trevor

[1990LS400]

Have you tried increasing the sensitivity with the dial on the stalk to cause the wipers to activate with less moisture on the sensor?  

Yes, the rain sensor can sometime activate the wipers when dust or debris hits it.   If this is happening rarely, it's normal.

[visionatsea]

Cleaned the front window and wipers began to function as they did previously.  Not perfect, since they occasionally continue to have one wipe of windshield on start up and do not come on immediately when rain begins, even when most sensitive setting is chosen.  We have the rain sensing feature on another car and it seems to work more as one would expect, although it has not had to function with a dirty window,

[1990LS400]

The question is: Do your wipers turn on when they are needed?  It sometimes seems to me as if a critical mass of rain drops on the rain sensor must be reached before the wipers are triggered.  If the wipers don't come on when I want, I manually trigger the first swipe with the stalk and then put the stalk back into the Auto position.  It does sometimes seem like I'm "priming the pump" to get them going.

One reason I may not notice this issue as much is that I've used water repellent glass treatment for decades - at least once per month on windshields.  Rain-X and similar treatments often make windshield wipers seem superfluous.

[Gary J2]

I had the same problem and the dealer adjusted the sensitivity on the wiper control stalk, located on the steering column.