My Saturn L200 has windshield wipers that park in the up position. In the past on other older cars this problem was caused by a bad ground. I took the car to Saturn Dealer and they said it was a bad windshield wiper motor and the repair was $400 (ouch). I mentioned the ground and they said, ‘Oh No. It is not like that anymore… it is a circuit board and motor issue.’ Uh Huh.
I figured I could live with the windshield wipers parked on the windscreen for $400 and would bring it back when the motor failed.
Over a year later and the motor has not failed but now the directionals work intermittently. Took it to my mechanic and he thought it was the switch (I thought it was a flasher but those are now integrated into a modual that controls the directionals AND the 4 ways). He replaced the switch and that was not the answer.
The car had the BCM replaced last year (the antitheft sytem alarm would intermittently go off while you were driving down the road) per the dealer diagnosis. The windshield wipers were not parking before that and did not park after that.
Another thing worth noting is that the 4 way hazards do not work when the key is off. They work for a few flashes and then stop with the key either in accessory, on, start or running.
At this point my mechanic is chasing down the grounds (battery to engine and engine to body). Certainly this is worth checking and it may, in fact, be the answer (if it is I will post an answer for the next person who has these questions).
Meanwhile, does anyon have ideas or a similar experience and what was found? Thank you for your time!
Boy. I guess you have a pretty good mechanic. Don’t open the checkbook.
Actually, he is a good mechanic. He is NOT the mechanic at the dealership… that was a different set of people. I had it in there because the BCM was failing with respect to the Anti Theft alarm (I would drive down the road and suddenly the horn would sound and the lights would flash… which is NOT cool when a State Trooper is coming towards you and NOT cool when you are driving to work thru a residential neighborhood at 5:00AM on the way to work). Due to programming the car had to go to Saturn for a new BCM and while it was there I asked about the windshield wipers.
He went back from the switch and the Saturn has the feed go through the 4 ways to the directionals (or maybe that is the other way around). There was some sort of fault in this wiring set up which is now repaired.
Still cheaper than a new car…
The Windshield wipers remain on the windscreen. An aftermarket windshield wiper motor is avaialble but we are not sure if it includes an internal circuit board like the OEM motor. Meanwhile the blades are parked on the windscreen and they remove the rain when turned on… and that is all I care about.
No more Government Motors for me. I was a GM person for years but they have too many build it cheap as they can flaws in too many cars/trucks I have purchased. Next car is a Honda.