Good old French Electrics

Soldato
Joined
24 Oct 2002
Posts
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Location
Manchester City Centre
Well my rear wiper stopped working about a year and a half ago. It's gone before but last time it was just the relay which got wet (design of the wiper mount lets water in) so replaced that and all was well, but this time it wasn't that so assumed it was the motor itself. This didn't bother me that much and it isn't an MOT failure so just got on with it for a while.

I had been keeping an eye out for a new motor but as mine is a phase3 the wiper motors are different and didn't spot one for a while and then I managed to pick one up on ebay a couple of months ago but haven't got round to fitting it yet.

Then yesterday I got in my car and turned it on and lo and behold the rear wiper randomly started going :confused: This hasn't worked for over one and a half years! Great I think, happy days :D

But... then I noticed that the switch for the rear wiper wasn't actually on, and the bloody thing won't switch off :o

So now I'm stuck with the rear wiper on constantly, think I much preferred it when it didn't work at all :p

So anyone got any ideas? Dodgy earth? Everything else works fine. And any ideas on how to get it to stop before I rip the damn thing off :p

Anyone else have any interesting electrics at the minute?
 
Ignore it as it will break again solving the problem! To make it stop, just remove the relay (or the earth) but iirc this also controls the electric windows and sunroof or can affect them (reading up on the fault from my experience below)!?

My boot button stuck in, so after opening the boot from the inside and freeing it up the rear wiper decided to pack in.

Took the relay out, cleaned it up as it looked pretty new and put it back in, started to work again.

Few days later stopped working.

Few days later started working again.

Its a "feature", im just glad that I don't have electric anything else to go wrong, owning the superior lighter faster better version ;)
 
Just take the relay out so it stops going - wait a week or two, then put it back in - you never know, it might then start working fine again :p
 
The Manta did this - one day the rear wiper came on and never went off. I just removed the fuse as a temporary fix and that was about 3 years ago :o
 
We disconnected it in my brothers 306 HDI, every time you tried to open the front windows or put the rear wiper on, it would blow the fuse and you would be left with a half open window!

Still disconnected now IIRC... we did say we were going to remove it totally and replace with a grommit.
 
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random question: are those gti6 badges youve put on the sides the same size as the back one or are they smaller? Where did you get them from?

Much love
 
I had something similar where my engine would carry on running despite taking the key out of the ignition... :D

Our old Beford CF Pickup used to do this, but this was due to the amount of oil it took into the cylinders - it effectively turned into a Diesel running on compression once you switched the ignition off :D
 
Raining this morning so I thought great its actually useful. Got in the car and switched on and... nothing. Just stopped working again.

Until I tried to turn it on that is and now they're working perfectly! Result!

Gotta love self-fixing cars. Wonder if it can change its own cambelt too? :p
 
The oil level guage, temperature guage and fuel guage shake backwards and forwards on mine while the speedo needle spins around to 140MPH and back and the rev counter needle spins round to 6000rpm. But they only do that when it's cold outside and for about the first 10 minutes :p

Front wipers are also playing up when on Auto, they'll work properly, actually sensing the rain to begin with, but then they go mad and go faster than I've ever seen wipers go. Not very useful. So, I either have to use the single-wipe method if it's not raining that much, or I have to put up with what is normally the second wiper speed setting on other cars which is usually too fast.
 
Well my rear wiper stopped working about a year and a half ago. It's gone before but last time it was just the relay which got wet (design of the wiper mount lets water in) so replaced that and all was well, but this time it wasn't that so assumed it was the motor itself. This didn't bother me that much and it isn't an MOT failure so just got on with it for a while.

I had been keeping an eye out for a new motor but as mine is a phase3 the wiper motors are different and didn't spot one for a while and then I managed to pick one up on ebay a couple of months ago but haven't got round to fitting it yet.

Then yesterday I got in my car and turned it on and lo and behold the rear wiper randomly started going :confused: This hasn't worked for over one and a half years! Great I think, happy days :D

But... then I noticed that the switch for the rear wiper wasn't actually on, and the bloody thing won't switch off :o

So now I'm stuck with the rear wiper on constantly, think I much preferred it when it didn't work at all :p

So anyone got any ideas? Dodgy earth? Everything else works fine. And any ideas on how to get it to stop before I rip the damn thing off :p

Anyone else have any interesting electrics at the minute?
Not just french electrics. My Octavia did exactly the same thing when the seal failed and using the rear wash simply filled the motor up shorting everything out. Even more annoyingly it also effected the front wipers!

I just removed the thing completely as it looked much cleaner without it. Not sure I would want to do that on a 306 though with the flat back attracting lots of crud and spray.
 
My mates E class threw a wobbler the other day. Left home, hit a bump and all 4 windows went down.

Got to the farm where his unit is, over a cattle grid and they all went up again.

And that's german electrics!!
 
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