# 1994 wipers have barely any power



## mscar111 (Mar 15, 2018)

It got really cold and snowed and froze my car in ice, the ice ruined my wipers so I bought some new wiper blades and after putting them on, my wipers barely work now. They only work on 1 setting which is the slowest and only go about half way and then get stuck in place, sometimes the wipers will make a full swing up and down, but at a snail speed.

I have a Multimeter, I've tested the wiper relay and its fine, also the fuse is fine, I'm going to be taking the wipers apart tomorrow and checking if they are gunked up with stuff, I bought grease to regrease the bars, but if its not that, I'm guessing its either the wiper handle next to the steering wheel that you set the wiper speed, or the wiper motor. How can I test the wiper motor or the wiper bar next to the steering wheel (I don't know what its called).


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## smj999smj (Jan 1, 2006)

The "wiper bar," as you call it, is the wiper switch. It can cause the wipers not to work, if it fails, but won't cause them to work too slow. That's usually the sign of a bad wiper motor, assuming it is getting full power to it and the ground is good.


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## mscar111 (Mar 15, 2018)

smj999smj said:


> The "wiper bar," as you call it, is the wiper switch. It can cause the wipers not to work, if it fails, but won't cause them to work too slow. That's usually the sign of a bad wiper motor, assuming it is getting full power to it and the ground is good.


Thanks for the reply! That's what I was afraid of, how can I test if the wiper motor is going bad? I have a multimeter and I'm wondering if I disconnect the plug from the wiper motor, if I can stick the prongs into the plug and check and see if I'm getting a reading to see how much electricity is going to the wiper motor, that way I can see if it's getting enough power, but I'm not sure how that would be possible seeing as if there was an exposed wire, wouldn't it blow the fuse? Are you saying that if the ground is corroded, then it might not be able to get enough power to it? Sorry, I'm not really familiar with how it all works, what would be my best option? A new wiper motor is like $90, there's a few junk yards around my area, I'm wondering if it would be better to go to one of them and pull out a used wiper motor and see if that's the actual problem.

I've also seen where someones wipers weren't working because there was just a lot of gunk, like there's these bars connecting both wipers blades, and there's some kind of elbow with gears that can get gunked up, all the guy did was take it apart, and clean it, then grease it and put it all back together and the wipers worked again. Do you have any idea of what I'm talking about? I might be able to find the video and link it if not.


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## mscar111 (Mar 15, 2018)

smj999smj said:


> The "wiper bar," as you call it, is the wiper switch. It can cause the wipers not to work, if it fails, but won't cause them to work too slow. That's usually the sign of a bad wiper motor, assuming it is getting full power to it and the ground is good.


I FIXED IT! Thank you so much for the advice! It turned out it was the wiper motor! I unhooked the wiper motor electrical plug and used my multimeter to test and see how many volts it was getting, and it was getting 12 volts, so I reconnected the wiper motor and set the wiper switch inside the car to max and then came outside the car and listened to the wiper motor and it sounded really bad, like it was stressing a lot to turn, lots of noise, and it was barely moving, so I turned it off, disconnected the electrical plug, then on the side of the electrical plug, there are 4 screws to take off the cover. I took the cover off and inside was a bunch of plastic gears that were covered in grease that had hardened and became really stiff, so I took apart all the gears and cleaned them, then regreased them and put everything back together. It was EXTREMELY dirty and gunked up, I had to use a wire brush on some parts. After it was cleaned and greased up, I put it all back together and it works perfectly now!

I saved myself $90 by opening the motor up and regreasing it, instead of buying a whole new motor. I suggest to anyone in this forum, if your wiper motor is sounding really harsh while turned on, open it first and check the grease inside to make sure it hasn't hardened.

Thanks so much for all the help, I should have taken pictures and videos but I honestly didn't think I was going to be able to get it to work. From here on out I'll try to take pictures and videos to help others out that have the same problems.


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