I have windshield wipers that have a mind of their own. They go off intermittently as I'm driving. Can anyone tell me wassssssup with that??

Thanks,

 

Uncommanded wiper operation.... bad multifunction switch.

 

I have your trucks evil twin! I can be driving down the road in the beautiful 90+ sunshine and on go the wipers. The only way I can make them stop is to pull the fuse. Sometimes they go on when I start the truck. All I know is that I have to fix this before rainy season begins.
JK

 

My wifes Taurus does it too. Im waiting for more things to break before shelling out that 100.00 deductible though. Otherwise I could fix it myself for about half that.

 

I am a new member and started laughing when I read this because my 95' Ranger I just bought does the same thing. I thought it was just my truck. bad wiring or something but it drives me nuts because I live in the DESERT! It never rains!! I can hardly ever get them to shut back off when they do that too. Sometimes it will even start spraying winshield wiper fluid. It is wierd. I think it is a ghost! I want to fix this problem but I don't know how.

 

I found this floating around a chat room that could help remedy the windshield wiper issue. Thanks CANADIAN_LARIAT


I fixed the phantom windshield wipers myself. It turns out all you need to do is clean the switch up.
To clean the switch does NOT require removing the turn signal from the steering column and takes about ten minutes.

1. On the turn signal lever, remove the end cap with a small screwdriver.

2. Remove the phillips screw located under the end cap.

3. WATCH IT! there is a spring to push back against the wiper rotating ****. Hold in the wiper switch so it won't go flying.

4. WATCH IT! again. When removing the wiper rotating switch there are two detents that are pressed against the inside of the **** (with another small spring pushing against each other) to give detents to the different levels of wiper delay when you rotate the ****.

5. Inside you will see the switch wiper mounted to a white plastic piece that you can just pull out. It looks kind of weird with 4 arms and an elbow wiper coming out of it.

6. After you pull out the switch wiper just gently clean everything inside, a sort of circuit board looking goodie with rings for the switch wiper to rotate on.

I used a rag and a small (jewelers) screwdriver to clean the board inside and very carefully made sure the gaps between the traces were clean. There is quite a bit of grease in there.

I reassembled the switch using lubriplate (it was handy) and it was very easy to disassemble and to reassemble.

I have had no re-occurrence of the phantom windshield wiper and I don't miss it a bit.
Hope this helps!