GingerNinja
The front wipers died today during one of the biggest storms in ages. I turned them on and they moved about an inch and that was it. I've checked the fuses and replaced the relay but still no dice. Where to from here? Should I try the stalk next? the switch to turn on the rear wiper still works.
Philia_Bear
If none of the settings do anything I would wonder if the motor had not died
familyman
First I'd probably work out if it's an electrical or mechanical fault. A motor that's physically stuck for some reason will still draw current. So I'd measure across the battery terminals with a multimeter on the 20VDC setting, then turn the wipers on & off. You'd expect to see the digits change or needle blip a bit as it tries to come on, even if there's no movement.
Second I'd look at the circuit diagram for your year model, find the colour of one of the power wires to the wiper motor, and connect a bit of wire directly from the battery positive into the back of that colour wire at the harness plug - or pull the plug right out if you can't get the wire in the back (I'd twist some wire around a spare multimeter probe and jam that in - don't use the multimeter lead itself to make that connection though, it might melt). This is to test if the motor itself is ok (comes on).
If it does turn on that way, then you know it's either the fuse, the stalk switch internals carboned-up (use multimeter to test its functions with its harness disconnected), or an earth come off, relay, or the intermittent relay, a broken wire from the stalk harness to the motor (use diagram and multimeter continuity test - or a test light).
It could be the earth strap at the motor itself, but that's far less likely unless you know you've had that off.
familyman
Yeah, good point... No settings at all could be disconnected earth, or dead motor. Again, put voltage directly to the two different motor speed points to see if motor comes on.
Sorry, I'm in physical pain atm, so forgot to finish my "first" point above... i.e. If the motor draws current/tries to move but can't, obviously something is physically stuck/needs grease/etc.
I've had stalks carbon up before. Either some CRC electrical contacts cleaner, or replace the stalk. You could again test this with a bit of wire and armed with the circuit diagram, while sitting in the driver seat. i.e. The switch itself doesn't work, but connecting across the correct terminals on the outside of the stalk does.
GingerNinja
Ok thanks. I'll try to check a few of these things today. None of the settings on the stalk work, except for the rear wiper.
VolvoDeger
take the cover off the motor and see if contacts are touching maybe stuck on the up ram
GingerNinja
Thanks for the suggestions on this. I tried a few things like relay, fuse and stalk but it ended up being the wiper motor. A fairly simple job to swap in another one and now wipers are back on. Putting RainX on the windscreen was getting a bit tiring.