Leaving work in the 1995 Civic LX with D16 motor, car is wet so i give the wipers one quick flick…everything works fine. I notice one swipe didn’t clear all the water, i go for another and nothing happens. I assume i blew a fuse since I just replaced the wiper motor within the past few months…so proceed to drive home thinking nothing big of it.
Notice on the way home the power windows aren’t working either…hm…
Get home, go inside and relax, look up a fuse diagram so i don’t have to pull every one looking for the blown one. Go back outside a bit later, fuses are all good…
Just out of curiosity, I put the key in the ignition and turn it forward but don’t start the car. Try the windows first…work fine! Try the wipers, nothing happens at all…go to try windows again, and they don’t work all of a sudden again.
Scratch my head…take keys out, wait a minute, put keys back in, turn forward, windows still don’t work. Wait another minute or two…try again, windows work. Go to try wipers…nothing, and again it appears that by just trying the wiper, I’ve caused the windows to not work again. wtf.
So I assume nothing is blown, because if that was the case the windows would never work at all. I believe the window and wiper motors do share a mutual fuse, so they must share some mutual wiring somewhere too…I’m just hoping this problem has occurred for someone else before, and it doesn’t involve checking through the miles of wire to find something crossed somewhere.
There must be something up with your wiper motor. I know on my car, if I short the running lights through a trailer harness, they don’t turn back on until I remove and re-insert the key, no fuses blow. Your wiper motor must be getting power from the same source as the windows, and the wiper motor has something screwy going on.
There is the ICU (Integrated Control Unit), which from what I have seen usually controls the wipers, interior lights, rear defrost, and sometimes various lights on the dash (seatbelt, door ajar). I have not seen a situation though where the power windows are affected in unison with the wipers.
Could be that they’re not related and you’ve got sketchy switches that are both acting up at the same time.
When the power windows don’t work have you tried from different switches? Like does the passenger side not work from both its own switch and the driver’s side master switch?
Pull the battery terminals, and touch them together for a few seconds. A lot of times in other makes the comfort control module can get confused with itself(controls locks, wipers, windows, etc) – touching the two terminals together drains the capacitors in the control unit, and makes it forget all the wrong shit it learned. Often referred to as “Battery Voo-Doo” – not 100% sure its your issue, but Its not uncommon.
I’ve tried all interior lights, blower motor, both windows from the driver side, and the passenger window from the passenger door’s switch…everything works fine, until i even try to touch the wipers (regardless of actually turning wipers on, or just hitting the mist 1-swipe function of the wipers), and as soon as i do ANYTHING wiper related…the windows stop working from the driver and passenger switches.
Could the metal terminal inside the fuse box be loose? I had this issue on my GTI. The wipers would work for a min, then stop, then work. I stretched the clip out so it was tight on the fuse and its been fine for over a year.