Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

Just recently my '91 216 GTi has developed a habit of turning on intermittent wipe randomly, mostly when it is not raining!

Any ideas anyone, do I need to make a trip to the scrappy for a "new" part or is it more likely to be electrics?

Going to assume its your front wipers.

i would be looking at the relay first.

Front wipers yes, I should have said that!

Thanks 1234, I'll get the manual out and have a gander at the weekend, I'm not big on electrics though!

Could be something wrong with the steering column switch or the Multi-Function Unit as that controls the intermittent wipe.

A MFU fault would actually be a stroke of good fortune! Rimmer's have them remarkably cheaply (saloon version at any rate).

The windscreen wiper motor is also a likely suspect as they commonly fail causing the wipers to park at random on the screen. If the parking of the wipers isn't right then my money would be on the motor.

E_T_V - my problem is more as you describe. On intermittent the wipers cannot make the return journey and stop positioned vertically on the windscreen. I have to flip the quick wipe to get them back into the correct position.

I assume the wiper motor is more likely to be culpable than the relay/MFU. New Brushes perhaps? Also would this be an MOT failure.

The wipers work ok on Normal and Fast wipe.

Any advice much appreciated.

Cheers.
Tony

Crepello - do you have a link or part no for Rimmers MFU please as if cheap then will try that first before dismantling the wiper motor.

Here's the MFU, which I bought on the off-chance it would upgrade my non-delayed courtesy lights. It did! It has gone up a couple of pounds since last December.

However, your latest fault description does sound like a motor problem. From my experience with a Honda Accord, there may be a gapped slip-ring in the motor housing which maintains motor power in the absence of a control signal, until the park position is reached. Whether this would be full motor current or a control current I don't know. On my Accord, the contact finger had lost contact pressure.

Thanks, sounds like a motor dismantle and have a look. Clean up the contacts and brushes.