95 legacy sedan wiper problem

[Rebecca Wagaman]

I hope someone here can enlighten me!

On Saturday I drove for 7+ hours in bad weather and was using my wipers
quite a bit but alternated between off, intermittent, low, and high as one
typically has to do in New England On Sunday, I started the car and put
the wiper stick in the 'intermittent' position (not variably intermittent)
and got nothing. Low, nothing. However, the wipers work on the High
setting, and they work in the manual setting - pulling the stick towards me
(and holding it there) allows the wipers to work. If I turn off the high
setting, the wipers do not return to the zero position - I have to hold the
stick towards me and try to let go when they reach the bottom. Used to be
that I could just pull quickly towards me and release and the wipers would
go up once then down. Same deal with the sprayer - it still sprays just
fine but will not wipe.

I have an appointment to have the car checked in a few days but I was trying
to find an answer to my problem in the meantime. Any insights?

Cheers,
Rebecca

 

[Ralph E Lindberg]

I hope someone here can enlighten me!

On Saturday I drove for 7+ hours in bad weather and was using my wipers
quite a bit but alternated between off, intermittent, low, and high as one
typically has to do in New England On Sunday, I started the car and put
the wiper stick in the 'intermittent' position (not variably intermittent)
and got nothing. Low, nothing. However, the wipers work on the High
setting, and they work in the manual setting - pulling the stick towards me
(and holding it there) allows the wipers to work. If I turn off the high
setting, the wipers do not return to the zero position - I have to hold the
stick towards me and try to let go when they reach the bottom. Used to be
that I could just pull quickly towards me and release and the wipers would
go up once then down. Same deal with the sprayer - it still sprays just
fine but will not wipe.

I have an appointment to have the car checked in a few days but I was trying
to find an answer to my problem in the meantime. Any insights?
..

Sounds like the switch to me

--

 

[Rebecca Wagaman]

I hope someone here can enlighten me!

On Saturday I drove for 7+ hours in bad weather and was using my wipers
quite a bit but alternated between off, intermittent, low, and high as one
typically has to do in New England On Sunday, I started the car and
put the wiper stick in the 'intermittent' position (not variably
intermittent) and got nothing. Low, nothing. However, the wipers work on
the High setting, and they work in the manual setting - pulling the stick
towards me (and holding it there) allows the wipers to work. If I turn
off the high setting, the wipers do not return to the zero position - I
have to hold the stick towards me and try to let go when they reach the
bottom. Used to be that I could just pull quickly towards me and release
and the wipers would go up once then down. Same deal with the sprayer -
it still sprays just fine but will not wipe.

I have an appointment to have the car checked in a few days but I was
trying to find an answer to my problem in the meantime. Any insights?

Cheers,
Rebecca

As an update, I took my car in to be looked at today. Of course, after 6
days of not working, my wipers were working properly again just as I was
going in. They still looked at it (no charge!) but didn't find a problem.

Any further advice/ideas are welcome! I hope this was just a glitch...

Rebecca

 

[Robert L Wilson]

It is quite possible for the switch to fail this way. In my (also 95)
Outback a few weeks
ago I was caught by surprise when the intermittent wiper setting did not
work, the blades
did not move at all. I found that if I pulled the switch lever toward me
just a bit it would make
contact, so I did nothing real to fix it. Now it is working fine, no need to
pull the lever. Who
knows what gremlin (perhaps a little bit of non-conductive dirt?) got in
there.
Bob Wilson

 

[Rebecca Wagaman]

It is quite possible for the switch to fail this way. In my (also 95)
Outback a few weeks
ago I was caught by surprise when the intermittent wiper setting did not
work, the blades
did not move at all. I found that if I pulled the switch lever toward me
just a bit it would make
contact, so I did nothing real to fix it. Now it is working fine, no need
to
pull the lever. Who
knows what gremlin (perhaps a little bit of non-conductive dirt?) got in
there.
Bob Wilson

This sounds about right to me. One other thing I noticed is that when the
wipers weren't working properly I heard just a bit of a faint clicking sound
that I didn't hear before and don't hear now. If it happens again, I'll
have them look at the switch.

Now I just have to deal with a new problem today; apparently my alternator
is dead.
Rebecca