Windshield Wipers Won’t Turn Off or Go All The Way Up Windshield

Looking for some expertise on the wipers on my 2020. It’s a TRD Sport with the variable intermittent wipers. I will post a short, possibly helpful, and very boring video below.

On Sunday night it snowed a bunch, which changed to rain, and then everything froze. I’m pretty meticulous about cleaning snow and ice from my truck because it’s a safety hazard, and it pisses me off when my wipers are half frozen and make the windshield all streaky. So I warmed the truck up as I was removing ice and snow, then got in and hit the wiper stalk up to clean the little bit of melted snow on the windshield. The wipers move up about 6”, then stop. Then they try to go back down but only move about a half inch. They do this continuously when the truck is started or even just turning the key to ACC. The wiper stalk position has no effect whatsoever. I can push the wipers down to the base of the windshield when they’re on their downward stoke, but when trying to pull up there seems to be a hard stop.

Something frozen in the motor? Stuck relay, which is apparently in the wiper stalk?

Edit: video won’t post. iPhone videos not supported maybe.

 

You said you "hit the wiper stalk up to clean the little bit of melted snow on the windshield". Are you sure there isn't still some ice or hard snow like on the base of the wiper mechanism and hood that's keeping the arm from rotating?

 

Just thinking out loud, lift the wipers again and look at the nub where the arm attaches. My surmise is something got frozen in one or both areas there.

 

That’s was my initial thought too, so I scraped out everything I could. Maybe I’ll take the wife’s hair dryer out. Haha.

 

Took the hair dryer out, arms are definitely not frozen now. I can manually pull the wipers about 1/4 of the way up the windshield, but they seem to hit a hard stop. I can push them back down as well. As soon as the wipers have power, they start operating for some reason, but only about the same 1/4 of their stroke.

 

That was my next thought..excellent move. I wonder if you have a linkage binding issue under the cowl perhaps.

 

Seems possible. Too bad everything is under the cowl since it’s like -15 out every day. Maybe there’s a chunk of ice under there preventing movement.

 

Of course, it's always the way. I forget if there's venting on the cowl of your gen, perhaps try to run the hair dryer on there a little bit and see if it improves anything without taking it apart.

 

Be careful with that hairdryer you can ruin that 500.00 plastic cowl. If you can find someone with a heated garage and remove the wiper arms then cowl and find out what’s going on under there.

 

There is vents on the cowl. I had the hood up earlier today and there was ice all over the vents too, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s ice under it too. Wish I though of that earlier.

 

I was thinking about warping the plastic. I hate taking plastic things apart in the cold too, it gets so brittle. I’ll take a look in the vents tomorrow and see what I can see.

 

Sure sound like those splined posts might be stripped due to bind, I would start there.

 

It would be best if you can find a warm place as you mentioned plastic gets brittle and well you know what happens.

 

True, even if it's not heated getting it inside will at least be some ambient heat

 

That is one thing I hate about these 3 Generation Tacoma is the build up of snow, ice etc between the windshield and the hood such a bitch to keep clean and it also affects the remote start on the passenger side where the sensor is always ices up for some reason blocking it.

 

I agree, it’s kinda like a valley and in the fall here mine fills up with leaves.

 

If you can’t park it inside, try gently warming it instead of using direct heat by using a couple long v-bent or u-shaped bent pieces of cardboard across the top of the vents with a hair drier on the side warming the air under it?

 

Problem solved! Thanks for all the replies. Whoever mentioned the vents on the cowl was on the right track. The storm on the weekend dropped about 4” of hail and it looks like after the top of the cowl filled up, the ice pellets started rolling under the hood and into the vents on the cowl. I peeled the front edge of the cowl up and melted it free with the wife’s hair dryer, then was able to reach in and pull the ice out. Was about a foot long chunk of ice, so I can see why the wiper arm couldn’t move through its whole stroke.

 

You might consider investing in a heat gun. They are handy for a lot of situations like what you just had, frozen locks, removing stickers , removing decals, etc. And your wife will be happy you're not using her hair dryer.

 

My wife's 2005 Rav4 had a very skinny channel there and she froze the wipers when she first got it not thinking about it. Expensive lesson.

Hell yes, glad it worked out well. Free fix is a good fix for sure.

Hair dryer probably freed it up fairly quick I presume?