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Rain Sensing Wiper Troubles – Suggestions?

mdrew

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mdrew Enthusiast

mdrew

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I have an 08 Sierra Denali. It has the rain sense wiper option on it. Since day one, I have had troubles with the auto sensing function. In light snow, they will not work at all. By not working, I mean that they will not wipe, regardless of the delay (sensitivity) sensitivity setting. In a very light rain, mist or fog, I have the same problem. Increasing sensitivity does not make them wipe. During these situations, I have to manually control the wipers by rotating the delay knob up / down a click to get them to wipe. Every once is a while, I can be driving along in a bright sunny day, not a cloud in the sky and the damn things will just start wiping. Sometimes they go completely berserk and wipe at top speed, sometimes it’s just a casual wipe across a dry windshield. I'm almost convinced they are demonically possessed.

 

I have taken the truck to the nearest dealer to address this problem twice, which is 300 miles away. The first time I took it in, they told me they work as designed. I asked them how they test the sensor, and they told me the “procedure” is to use a spray bottle, stand in front of the truck and spray water on the windshield. If the wipers wipe, then they call it good. I argued with the service manager about this silliness, but he told me that was the GM procedure and that there was nothing more they can do. I asked if they could disable them, but was told they can not because they are a “safety feature”. I left furious. I have tried unplugging the sensor, but I am then stuck with the opion of 'off', 'low' or 'high' and loose all delay functions. A year after my first visit to the dealer, I made another appointment to have them looked at again. I explained my situation (300 miles away from the dealer) and I asked them to do anything possible to remedy this problem. I left the dealer with the exact same results as before, but even angrier, and these crazy wipers that are driving my nuts.

 

Where I live, it rains when it isn’t snowing. We average 350” of snow a year. Wipers, (as silly as all this may sound to be this agrivated over something like automatic wipers), are something that is used almost daily. For two years of owning this truck, I have had to manually operate my wipers damn near every time I get in the truck. I am now at the point that I’m going to sell this truck and buy something else if I can not get this goofy rain sensor to work. I do not have a loan; the truck is paid in full so this is sort of a big deal to me as I don’t float from loan to loan and payment to payment like a lot of folks do. I pay cash for my rigs.

 

If anyone has a suggestion for adjusting this stupid thing, or replacing it, or removing it without loosing my delay feature, please advise me. Taking the truck back to the dealer is not really an option. It involves taking time off from work, 6 hours driving time in each direction, about $150 in gas for this trip, a night in a hotel ($200), a rental car for the day, food, etc. I’ve done this twice already to just fix something as simple as a damn windshield wiper sensor.

C. Charles Hahn Senior Enthusiast

C. Charles Hahn

Posted
Posted

Just unplug the sensor behind the rear view mirror. If you pop the square cover off, you'll see the connector for it -- pull that out of the sensor, reinstall the cover, and you're done. The wipers will revert to functioning like a regular intermittent wiper system.

 

EDIT: Just realized you said you'd already tried unplugging the sensor.... strange that it didn't retain the "delay" settings -- mine did when I unplugged the sensor.

jabajet Enthusiast

jabajet

Posted
Posted
...I'm almost convinced they are demonically possessed.

 

Totally agree - worthless gadget.

Klink Enthusiast

Klink

Posted
Posted

First rain I had mine in and I couldn't take it. I unplugged it in the morning and didn't look back. Mine function as normal wipers now. Are you sure you unplugged the right thing?

mdrew Enthusiast

mdrew

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First rain I had mine in and I couldn't take it. I unplugged it in the morning and didn't look back. Mine function as normal wipers now. Are you sure you unplugged the right thing?

 

Well, I only remember one option for disconnecting the sensor, but I’ve learned that I should never assume I did something correctly. I will try unplugging the thing once again. I ended up unplugging it after searching for this problem on a different forum and found out that the wipers should work correctly if the sensor is unplugged. I was surprised that I lost the delay function and assumed mine had a different program / firmware. I’ll give that another try, just to rule out or prove that I am in error. It is comforting to hear that others have had success with this. I had a Volvo with this feature and it worked very well. It sucks that GM does not have the same capability, as it was nice on Volvo. Thanks…..

KCXLT Enthusiast

KCXLT

Posted
Posted

Mine work fairly well, but I found they worked better when I put Aquapel on the windshield. If your driving at speed you don't even need wipers. The downside is the window sometimes glares up if a street light hits it at the right moment, but overall I like it.

  • 4 weeks later...
jabajet Enthusiast

jabajet

Posted
Posted

I unplugged mine at the windshield sensor... now I have normal intermittent wiper function. Great Improvement!

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