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  #1  
Old 12-05-2015, 04:29 PM
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Rain sensing wipers don't work?

Okay, this one is a serious annoyance to me. My E70 rain sensing wipers don't work. I live in sunny Western Washington, the drizzle capital of North America. Thanks to the presence of rain sensing wipers, my car doesn't have an intermittent wiper setting, so it's either off, low-constant, or high-constant, or I constantly have to "bump" the wiper stalk to get a single up-down cycle. Thanks, also, to the unending drizzle where it seldom "rains" even the low-speed wiper setting is too fast, and causes the wiper blades to streak-skip-squeak across a relatively dry windshield. They worked when I first bought the car used a couple of years ago.

I have tried keeping the car running with intermittent wipers turned on, and spraying the windshield with a stream of water from a garden hose, but to no avail. The wipers simply do not work in auto mode. This wouldn't really bother me, except that there is no automatic intermittent setting like I have had on every other vehicle that I have ever owned, to include some really crappy 1990s American cars.

Is there a troubleshooting method that I should be using? Very few people post about this problem on X5s.
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  #2  
Old 12-05-2015, 06:07 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slowlanemcvane View Post
Okay, this one is a serious annoyance to me. My E70 rain sensing wipers don't work. I live in sunny Western Washington, the drizzle capital of North America. Thanks to the presence of rain sensing wipers, my car doesn't have an intermittent wiper setting, so it's either off, low-constant, or high-constant, or I constantly have to "bump" the wiper stalk to get a single up-down cycle. Thanks, also, to the unending drizzle where it seldom "rains" even the low-speed wiper setting is too fast, and causes the wiper blades to streak-skip-squeak across a relatively dry windshield. They worked when I first bought the car used a couple of years ago.

I have tried keeping the car running with intermittent wipers turned on, and spraying the windshield with a stream of water from a garden hose, but to no avail. The wipers simply do not work in auto mode. This wouldn't really bother me, except that there is no automatic intermittent setting like I have had on every other vehicle that I have ever owned, to include some really crappy 1990s American cars.

Is there a troubleshooting method that I should be using? Very few people post about this problem on X5s.
Has the windshield been replaced since you've owned it? If so, OEM glass?
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  #3  
Old 12-05-2015, 06:46 PM
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I have rain-sensing wipers and the stalk still has the intermittent adjustment in the stalk. I have them both on the E70 and E61 and both have rain sensing wipers and intermittent adjustnebt (I guess that is used when the rain sensor isn't working.
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Old 12-06-2015, 06:53 AM
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You have pushed the button on the end of the stalk so the green LED has turned on?
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  #5  
Old 12-07-2015, 03:30 PM
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Yes, pushed the button on the stalk so the LED light comes on. When I adjust the wiper stalk one click, it immediately goes to low speed constant, one more to high speed constant. I can't get an intermittent feature to work. Well, it sort of does, but only goes to intermittent when the vehicle is stopped, or below, say, 5 MPH. As soon as I start moving, essentially they go to low speed constant.

I haven't replaced my glass either.
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  #6  
Old 12-08-2015, 01:38 PM
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Are you the original owner?

Does the Windshield have a BMW logo on it? Or another logo like PPG or Safelite?
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  #7  
Old 12-08-2015, 02:05 PM
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I believe the OE glass is Pilkington for many of the BMW's.

So even if the glass does not have the BMW logo, Pilkington glass is the next best option.
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  #8  
Old 12-09-2015, 11:38 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slowlanemcvane View Post
Yes, pushed the button on the stalk so the LED light comes on. When I adjust the wiper stalk one click, it immediately goes to low speed constant, one more to high speed constant. I can't get an intermittent feature to work. Well, it sort of does, but only goes to intermittent when the vehicle is stopped, or below, say, 5 MPH. As soon as I start moving, essentially they go to low speed constant.

I haven't replaced my glass either.
I'm no expert by any means but my rain-sensing wipers work when I hit the button and the green LED light comes on. If I also adjust the wiper stalk one click that "disables" the rain-sensing feature and goes to the constant-slow where it will stop when the vehicle stops as you describe above. Have you tried leaving the wiper stalk in the "off" position and just clicked the button? Mine don't start wiping immediately only when they sense water.
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  #9  
Old 12-09-2015, 11:50 AM
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Um, you DO NOT adjust the wiper stalk, this puts the wipers in a "normal" wipe mode. If you flip the wiper stalk upwards, it turns on the wipers in a full mode and does not use the rain sensor.

You adjust the "thumbwheel" on the wiper stalk to control the rain sensing sensitivity. But you do not move the stalk at all otherwise the rain sensing feature is disabled.

You may want to read the owners manual to make sure you really understand how the wipers work on the E70.

You must not drive the E70 on a regular basis.

It took me about 2 months to figure out how the wipers "really" worked on my E70. Partially because it did not rain much for the first 2 months that I owned the vehicle and the rain sensing worked so well it took a long time to understand that pushing the wiper stalk upwards turned on the wipers in a non rain sensing mode.
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  #10  
Old 12-09-2015, 02:15 PM
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There's a great idea for coding. If the rain sense function had an "always on" position.
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