Wipers only at highest speed

[Kieron G]

Have had this ongoing problem with my sisters 2001 Berlingo for a year now where only the fast speed worked on the wipers and they wouldn't park but after the car warmed up sometimes worked like they should. Thought it must be the wiper stalk /switch which I now understand is called the comms unit. Changed it but no difference. So my sister had been living with this intermittent fault nearly a year. Has come to Mot prep time and i read through all the threads on this forum about wiper faults although none were exactly the same. I had convinced myself that there was a problem with the main circuit board (forgotten correct name) and tried resetting it but no difference. One of the threads mentioned the wiper motor so took this apart, pulled the rotor out and cleaned all the internals. All works like new. What surprised me was 3 brushes, only seen 2 before. I guess that one or more of these wasn't contacting properly. Thought this was worth posting incase anyone else has the same problem.

[doctormartin]

Identical problem on my 97 D van putting up with it for 15 years. Now to find how to access the motor. Any tips

[Kieron G]

Yes. Fairly easy from what I remember. Remove the wiper arms then the two large plastic trims from under the screen. The motor is located on the passenger side below the windscreen. You can then access the nut which holds the arm on the motor spindle and remove that first marking where it goes back on with tippex. Then the mounting nuts or set screws for the motor and unit plug it. This is from memory might not be totally right

[brodfather11]

Mark the wiper arms position relative to the spindles with tippex , saves fiddling around after refitting.

KieronG is spot on with how to do it.

[RattyCortina]

AFAIK third brush in a wiper motor is for the self parking. It's permanently live but a switch in the motor cuts the power to it when the wipers reach the park position, when you switch the wipers off and cut the power to the main brushes it powers the motor until it reaches the park position.

(At least I think that's how it works, it was explained to me a long time ago...)