windshield wiper won't turn off
Thread Starter
|
Junior Member
Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 13
windshield wiper won't turn off
2001 H1 wagon. The windshield wipers will occasionally turn on with the switch in the off position. Moving the switch to high does make them go faster but turning back to off or adjusting the slider doesn't seem to make a difference. And they will go back to off sometimes. No rhyme or reason that I can tell. Anyone had similar issues? Would this be more of a relay problem? I still don't have a service manual to delve deeper yet. Thanks again!
D
D
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 355
From: Central Fla
Shot in the dark but....
My interior light brightness adjustment wheel thing had a similar problem. The dome lights would come on for a half second then go off. It seemed like a bad switch. I took Contact cleaner and squirted it in the wheel area and spun it up and down a few times. It works perfect now.
https://www.radioshack.com/products/...ant=5717842309
Maybe a blast of this on/in/around your wiper control might help??
My interior light brightness adjustment wheel thing had a similar problem. The dome lights would come on for a half second then go off. It seemed like a bad switch. I took Contact cleaner and squirted it in the wheel area and spun it up and down a few times. It works perfect now.
https://www.radioshack.com/products/...ant=5717842309
Maybe a blast of this on/in/around your wiper control might help??
Member
Joined: Jul 2014
Posts: 46
From: Austin, Texas
The slider switch for the wiper sounds like it has a slow leak and fires the wipers after a while. Notice how if you bearly put it on it will wipe every 30 seconds. Great for when mist is out on the road. Sounds like yours is never turning off. Contact cleaner should do the trick, if not, like Ian said, new switch.
Member
Joined: May 2016
Posts: 60
You should have called me on this one, it's somewhat easier to explain by phone. ;-)
It's backfeeding power from another accessory or device. Most common items to turn on when common grounding onto the ground stud under the hood is either wipers, brake lights, or sometimes something else but I forget. And if you disconnect the wipers from the circuit if there is enough power it will find another circuit to energize (likely brake lights by the way).
Accessories can throw power back into the ground wire and if you get enough power backfeeding like this it will energize something. What you need to find is what is causing it, not anything wrong with the wipers. Of course you can quickly troubleshoot out the switch (this could be it but based on what I've seen it usually isn't that simple. It's probably not the switch.
About 95% of the time if you have an aftermarket car alarm or remote start this is the problem. Another 4% of the time it's an aftermarket stereo. 1% of the time it's another aftermarket electronic item (not something as simple as lights).
Regarding electrical some people thing + is power and - is some magic thing other than also conducting electricity (those people are wrong). Ground doesn't mean it's not power, there is just as much power on the ground side as the positive side (give-or-take depending on the energy consumed by the electrical device when it is powered), think of it like flow (positive is "in", ground is "out"). If an accessory backfeeds power into the ground circuit then it can energize another circuit from the ground side if the other circuit is also somehow grounded. A light bulb or a wiper motor doesn't really care which side is power or ground as long as the other side is the opposite. Some electrical devices do matter which is power and ground. Here's an example: the HVAC blower motor in your Hummer will accept power/ground either way and depending on which way you run it the blower motor will either blow the correct way or in reverse. This is the same with wiper motor (but you don't realize it's in reverse because you just see the wipers moving).
Call me anytime, we're decent at electrical but it's still just a lot of troubleshooting sometimes.
It's backfeeding power from another accessory or device. Most common items to turn on when common grounding onto the ground stud under the hood is either wipers, brake lights, or sometimes something else but I forget. And if you disconnect the wipers from the circuit if there is enough power it will find another circuit to energize (likely brake lights by the way).
Accessories can throw power back into the ground wire and if you get enough power backfeeding like this it will energize something. What you need to find is what is causing it, not anything wrong with the wipers. Of course you can quickly troubleshoot out the switch (this could be it but based on what I've seen it usually isn't that simple. It's probably not the switch.
About 95% of the time if you have an aftermarket car alarm or remote start this is the problem. Another 4% of the time it's an aftermarket stereo. 1% of the time it's another aftermarket electronic item (not something as simple as lights).
Regarding electrical some people thing + is power and - is some magic thing other than also conducting electricity (those people are wrong). Ground doesn't mean it's not power, there is just as much power on the ground side as the positive side (give-or-take depending on the energy consumed by the electrical device when it is powered), think of it like flow (positive is "in", ground is "out"). If an accessory backfeeds power into the ground circuit then it can energize another circuit from the ground side if the other circuit is also somehow grounded. A light bulb or a wiper motor doesn't really care which side is power or ground as long as the other side is the opposite. Some electrical devices do matter which is power and ground. Here's an example: the HVAC blower motor in your Hummer will accept power/ground either way and depending on which way you run it the blower motor will either blow the correct way or in reverse. This is the same with wiper motor (but you don't realize it's in reverse because you just see the wipers moving).
Call me anytime, we're decent at electrical but it's still just a lot of troubleshooting sometimes.
Last edited by BigDogOffroad; Sep 1, 2016 at 05:21 PM.
Member
Joined: May 2016
Posts: 60
Nah mate, didn't mean to "bite your head off", it's just a completely different vehicle so rather than chasing down (or throwing parts at) the wrong thing I just thought I'd clarify. We do Hummer and HMMWV service for a living so many people who read these threads later will use the info other than only the original poster.
