I know the topic on wiper issues has been worn to hell.

I just wanted to say that I had the opportunity to use the wipers today in Houston on my new '04 CLK. They worked perfectly..no issues. They were very quiet and did not have crazy movements on just sprinkling.
They worked great.

pp

 

If you experience anything similar to what I've experienced, it's only a matter of time until they start chattering and doing strange things with the rain sensors.

I had my car in twice for the wipers and I thought everything was finally corrected - they worked great for a few weeks. Then during one of our 30-day stint of rainy days, mine started to chatter again and occassionally, the wipers go into super-ultra-high speed mode when using the rain sensor feature.

There should be NO possiblity of the wipers going into high-speed mode with the rain sensor feature. Stupid design. I really dislike driving in the rain - especially with a passenger. It's embarassing.

I still think that a good part of the problem is that the springs which hold the wipers to the glass are too strong. They were designed to hold the wipers to the glass at 140mph while sacrificing low-speed smoothness. And so many of us drive 140mph in the rain !

 

I haven't driven my car in the rain very often, but if I experience the problem, here's what I'm thinking of doing.

1. It seems like the wipers do a poor job of clearing the rain away from the sensor, so the sensor thinks there's a lot of rain on the windshield and it causes the wipers to freaks out. I'm thinking of applying Rain-X on the part of the windshield where the sensor is, so the rain will roll away and not mess with the sensor. I hear many people do not put Rain-X on the entire windshield because the wipers skip and chatter across.

2. Then, wax (Zaino) the rest of the windshield to help water bead and run off?

Any ideas if this will do anything, or is it just another useless idea I created in my head?

 

I rain-X the whole windshield, including the sensor. It still gets confused and sends the wipers into freak-out mode.

But maybe the Zaino would make a better surface for the wipers than the rain-X. I don't know. Maybe I'll give it a whirl.

 

Where is the rain sensor on the windshield???

 

Upper middle part of windshield. Basically right where the rear new mirro attaches to the windshield...at least I think that's where it is.