Hopped in the car this morning and found the front wipers running intermittently (every 5 sec) no matter what setting is selected--they can't be shut off. A brief search on the forum didn't reveal anyone else coming up with this problem, but surely I'm missing it? Thanks in advance.
I'm betting your 12v battery is the original? You're lucky if they last more than 4 - 5 years and they cause all sorts of weird electrical gremlins as they start to fail. Has your mileage started to drop too? Definitely get it checked out - have a search of this forum on how to check your 12v. Good luck.
The original battery was replaced this year, however, the car was not driven for 40 days until I returned from England (I noticed Harrogate) this week. The wipers started this odd behavior after a few days.
Did you disconnect the 12v whilst away? Did you have to jump start the car when you got back? It still sounds like a 12v issue to me - I am completely uneducated though! Oooh did you pass through Harrogate? Were you over here on business or pleasure and did you enjoy the snow? Hope everyone was friendly to you.
Probability is high that GrumpyCabbie is right. There was a report 2-3 years ago of an incident where the wipers came on and the headlights intermittently flashed. It was a discharged 12V battery. Can't say why your newish battery would be low. I'm going to guess that it was low on your return and that since then, your trips have been shortish, lets say less than an hour. This will do little or nothing to charge the 12V battery back up. Patrick Wong has posted that it takes 8 hours of the car running in the READY condition to do any significant charging. You need to establish the condition of the battery by getting a voltage reading after the car has sat overnight.
The wiper system is of fairly simple design. I doubt that a low 12V battery would cause the problem reported by the OP. My guess is that the wiper switch on the steering column needs to be replaced. In the meantime I recommend that the OP find the 30A WIP fuse in the fuse/relay box located under the driver's side of the instrument panel and remove it, so that the windshield is not scratched by the wipers moving across dry glass.
