hey all,my 99 accord v6 has developed an issue.when i turn on the wipers,they either do nothing or work intermittently,in other words they freeze up.i play with the the switch at the end of the arm and they work again.i'm guessing that maybe the contacts are dirty in the arm?seems worse in the cold......like it was last night. winter is on it's way i think.
anyway,i'm gonna clean the crud that is around the rotating **** and use compressed air to blow everything out and see how that works.........had a 2000 money pit called grand am that had the same type of issue with and the air worked great.
just curious if this is a common problem and to see if it can be fixed rather than replaced?

 

you're probably gonna end up replacing the wiper switch. same thing happened with my sisters car. but see what happens after you clean it out. maybe it will last a little bit longer.

 

well that took long..
i don't know for sure if it is permanent but i cleaned up the area with a scrap bath towel,to get into the cracks and crevices,used the air and then sprayed in some "red" rust check (awesome stuff,don't know if it's available in the u.s. or not).wiped off the excess,cleaned it again,oiled again (about 4 times) then used the air to blow it into the switch.cleaned it again and moved the wipers from off to high MANY times fast and slow and it seems to be ok......for now anyway.if i could remove the actual switch and intermittent controls on the stick and use dielectric in there it would be like new but i don't want to risk breaking the arm or switches in the process.
i guess time will tell.

 

thanks for the reply rc85.
from the posts i read the switch is actually the whole arm?and costs around $85?and could be easily replaced without a visit to the $100 an hr. dealer?

 

update..duh,i had no idea the wipers are speed controlled.on intermittent,if set to the fast setting,they switch to slow when not moving and return to fast once moving again.who knew?