2003 Jaguar X-Type.

About 6 months ago, while on the "intermittent" setting, the windshield wipers started freaking out.

Now, the Intermittent setting does not work at all, but low and high do.
Windshield spray works.
Single wipe does not work, nor does the "auto" setting.

Is this the switch itself? or is there a relay or something that may have gone bad.

Normally, I try to troubleshoot stuff like this myself, but on this one, I have no idea where to even begin to look!

All fuses appear to be good.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

 

Coral, looking at the diagrams, the wiper stalk is the only think that I can see that would cause what you are seeing. Replace that first and then see what you have at that point.

 

I have the same issue. what is involved in replacing the wiper stalk?

 

Bizmuth, if I remember things right, you will end up removing the ignition key tumbler. From there, you can undo the 3 (maybe 4) bolts holding the bottom of the steering column together. Remove the bottom plate and from there, you have access to the stalk as I recall.

I am sure others can chime in give a bit more detail. I never had the chance to remove my turn signal stalk.

 

After much research I found this exact issue, in other posts, being fixed by replacing the relay. In my case I happened to have a similar relay in my old toolbox from 20yrs ago when I worked in a harley davidson dealership. They are nearly the same but this one was in my box cause it had some issue.

After swapping them out some functions returned while others did not. To make a long story longer, previously I had low speed wipe, high speed wipe, Wwash sprays ok but no wipe with spray, no single wipe(when pulling stalk toward steering wheel), and no delay or auto wipe. The low/high speed wipe worked flawlessly including wiper park.

Before I get to far ahead of myself I might add that I tried the wipers with no relay installed,(cause that's the kind of guy I am) and found low/high wipe still worked, but they would not park when turned off, just stopped dead wherever they were when switched off, and all else the same. I didn't try the wash button, because I forgot about it, just confirmed no auto/delay/single wipe.(I have the wiring diagrams, and the relay does double even triple duty here tho it does take a bit to find the correct one for my 2004.~5. My luck I always get the mid year "new and improved" version that The books don't quite match.)

With the spare relay installed this is what happened, auto/delay/single wipe returned, wash/wipe worked as intended, but the park function was missing, well not entirely. You see if I switch quickly from low or high to off the wipers just freeze in their tracks, but if I pause in the first position,(auto/delay) the wipers park correctly,(weird) plus the single wipe works so long as I hold the stalk towards me, but no park. As soon as I release the single wipe the wipers freeze, unless I again go to the auto/delay position as before.(also weird)

Now I knew that the spare relay had some issue, I just didn't remember what it was. Internally these relays have two sets of contacts. A normally closed set(continuity present between the common terminal and the NC terminal with relay at rest unenergized), and a normally open set(no continuity between the common terminal and the NO terminal with the relay at rest unenergized). When energized(as by placing the wiper stalk in auto/delay, or pulling stalk for single wipe), the relay pulls the NC(normally closed) contacts open, and at the same time pulls the NO(normally open) contacts closed.

I popped the top off the orig. Jag relay(cause that's the kind of guy I am) and found that the NC(normally closed) contacts were not only closed but were quasi-spot welded closed, meaning this relay was not switching when it was energized. Being well familiar with this type relay I was able to free the stuck points and return the relay to a functioning state.(Yes it is advisable to replace this relay and I may just do that someday, but it works now, I understand why it didn't work before, and it says Jaguar on it so I'll likely let it ride till it gets really bad, cause that's the kind of guy I am)

Ok so why is this post so long? I'll tell you why. When I put the spare relay in and everything worked except the park function(remember the park function worked fine with the orig. relay, but not the auto/delay part), I was asking myself, What,Why, but the old one, and now the spare one won't, Why is that? (this was before I took the Jag relay apart) Then I remembered from the wiring diagrams that the wiper park function is fed through the NC(normally closed) contacts, which explains why it didn't work with the relay pulled out, but did with the orig relay in(remember the NC contacts were welded closed). so the issue with the old spare relay must have been a bad set of NC contacts.(I never confirmed this, but I can if anyone feels it necessary, but it seems reasonable to me)

Where does that leave us? With the orig Jag relay, that, for now, works correctly, all my wiper issues are repaired. High/low/auto/delay/single/wash-wipe/park all functional. I haven't really answered the "Why is this post so long?" question.
Well here it is. What caused the NC contacts to "weld" together? This is my theory, This vehicle has over 100,000 miles, this relay may well be the factory original. What happens in winter when there is snow on the windshield? The wipers wipe and the snow falls down to where the wipers are supposed to park, then when the wipers come down to park they can't quite get there, so the park function just sits there and heats the contacts in the relay until the key is switched off, then the contacts cool in a semi-permanent closed state, or develop a tendency to hang from time to time, thus making the wipers intermittently have a mind of their own, so to speak.

Summery: Wipe park complication burns NC relay contacts closed, NO contacts never get to close, auto/delay/single wipe functions suddenly disappear, or Phantomize "for no reason", euphoria of driving around in an awesomely cool car is diminished 13%, Find clues on jaguarforums.com fix problem for no$.