1999 Town Car: Jumpy windshield wipers

[riverguy]

1999 Town Car, like new, always maintained. 100K miles, rarely driven in rain. Today the wipers started becoming jumpy, both going up and coming down, but only in any intermittent mode. Full-on works fine. To be clear, "jumpy" means in each sweep, up and down, instead of it being a smooth sweep there are now several very brief hesitations. Not a good time for the wipers to fail!

 

[NYCruiser]

Mine was doing that until I put new blades on. I hope your problem is that simple.

 

[riverguy]

Mine was doing that until I put new blades on. I hope your problem is that simple.

I wish it was that simple, too! It's got new blades so I put the old ones back on - same issue.

 

[riverguy]

An update on this original problem: Now the intermittent wiper hesitation issue has become, uh, intermittent. Meaning sometimes they work just fine, and then they'll start acting up again. But here is a new clue that might mean something to anyone familiar with the electronics in the system. With the radio on a weak FM station yesterday, I noticed a scritchy noise in the speakers every time the wipers hesitated. The noise remained only for the duration of the hesitation, maybe a second or two. It's a static kind of noise, like you could expect from a faulty electrical connection.

Any ideas?

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[LeDe03]

I noticed a scritchy noise in the speakers every time the wipers hesitated. The noise remained only for the duration of the hesitation, maybe a second or two. It's a static kind of noise, like you could expect from a faulty electrical connection.

Any ideas?

You have explained it perfectly "like you could expect from a faulty electrical connection" ....

This is telling you to check the fuse that protects the wipers (or circuit breaker , can't recall which it's got) , and by check I mean actually pull it out of the fusebox and check to see that it's contacts where it plugs in aren't all burnt & discolored (should be bright shiny metal) . If that's ok , get to the wiper motor itself and separate the connections bringing the wires to it and check the connector for burnt contacts . The static sound in the radio is from what's called "Arcing" , which is the result of the faulty connection you diagnosed . Now all ya gotta do is find where in the wiper's circuit the faulty connection is . The fuse and the wire connectors are classic places for high resistance connections and hopefully you'll find it there .

 

[riverguy]

I pulled, cleaned and replaced the fuse (no evidence of arcing), and then checked the contacts in the plug to the wiper motor. Again, no visible evidence of any arcing, but after doing the push-in-pull-out thing a few times with the plug to clean the contacts, I have had no further intermittent wipers!

Oh that all repairs could be that easy!

Thanks, everyone, for your replies!