Front wipers
 

While on the motorway during heavy rain my wipers stopped working. About 90 minutes later, after being towed to safety and checking the fuse (fuse was fine) the wipers started working again and as the rain had stopped I completed my journey.

When home I cleaned up the connector to the motor and sprayed them with contact cleaner and waited for the next period of heavy rain to see if this would work. To date I have not had the opportunity to test them in heavy rain but while driving in constant drizzle the other day on the intermittent setting they stopped working. I tried the next settings up but no luck. Switched them off and then on again and they started working again. There is no noise from the wiper motor.

Where should I be looking to try and resolve this issue?

That's a tricky one to diagnose John.
The wipers are controlled by the BCU. Is there any sign of water ingress from the plenum?
I also vaguely recall a similar problem when damaged wiring was found beneath the underbonnet fusebox.

Simon

Wiring in the fusebox area looks good Simon. Area around the plenum area did show signs of water, now cleaned. I have the option to get a second hand motor, is it a difficult job to swap the motor?

I don't know John. They're not unreliable and speculative replacement of parts can become expensive, time consuming and demoralising. The secret lies in measurement. :}

The next time it happens, place your multimeter across the motor connector to establish whether there's 12v there or not.

Have you re-seated the relays?

Simon

Thanks for the advice Simon. I haven't reseated the relay, I will try that

Note that there are two of them John, R1 and R3 in the underbonnet fuse box.

Simon

Cheers Simon.

Could the switch be at fault?

I have changed the motor and linkage, cleaned the connectors with contact cleaner and reseated the relays. will see how it goes. Thanks for the help.

This won't solve the problem but could prevent needing another tow if the issue reoccurs. I treat my windscreen with Rain-X and when doing over 50MPH the water clears itself, with drops running up the screen, no wipers needed.