windshield wipers stopped working....

We had a snow and sleet storm cleaned the truck off and got in it to go to work...
Turned the windshield wipers on and they stopped midway.
All the snow and ice is clear from the truck it looks like it is in the vent area under the plastic cover. That area filled with snow and sleet.

Never had anything like this happen in the past on this or the other and any other brand...
what gives?

Guess I need to wait it out and let it melt does not look easy to get at..
It is stopping the arm that joins the two wipers..

 

that plastic cowl pops off easy as pie

open hood

remove rubber gasket

pop clips all along cowl reach in clean it out

or just park in a heated garage

 

Yep that is where a truck needs to be when you need it. Parked in a heated garage.

most of it come from build up driving.. guess you just can not drive them in bad weather.

 

I think you just had bad luck with it. My truck is parked outside and I am in freaking Frozenland. Never had them stop. I would see if defrosting helps, but even if it helps I would check this in the summer. Maye you need some grease on wiper arms or engine have connector pop off, or mice chew trough it and its getting a short.

 

That area was packed were the arms are linked from side to side.
I sprayed a bunch of de icer and that got some but did not want to drive it as it was trying to move then back to the down position and thought it would burn up the motor on it.
Anyway I carried a bunch of hot water and melted a bunch out an was able to get it to reset the wipers so I can drive home.

I think I will tape up that area in the winter months from now on..

 

You have to be careful, the linkage includes some plastic ball cups with metal balls that are known to break. I broke one on my '06, it's a $200 part or $75 used on eBay.

 

Why is the vent even there?

Can I just duct tape it off for now....

The wifes truck did the same but not as bad just grinding and never locked.
why they would have this area open to catch snow and ice has me.....

 

come on man, really ?

about every vehicle on the road today has the same or similar vents
between hood and windshield. it is a NON issue.

it has snowed 8 feet in one month where I am, never a problem

now way down south in the tropics where you are, I suppose a little freezing rain can mystify you...
but there is not a defect in the vehicle design vs the weather. these trucks are tested above the arctic
circle for months, and there is a reason the plastic cowl pops off easy, so you can go in there and clean it
up should anything freeze up.

 

Never had the problem on any other truck or car any place in the US from ND, CO, Ohio. Even many trips to canada and the Rockies. ...

BTW for easy?
mine has screws in it also you need to remove the wipers and the likes to get to it.

So you may be in the great white north. Lived there done that. But do not really see how me having a problem with my two trucks has anything to do with you and your location....


Back to the question. What is the vent for and why is it there.

BTW after a call to the dealer they said they had several towed in because of the same problem.
Some drove in.
They could not tell me about the vent and why it was there.
Turns out the amount if sleet we had bounced down the window and filled up the vent area stopping the arm from moving.

They said with the cold 17 now and 5 over night need to heat them enought to melt it out. Cant remove te block with out damaging something as it is solid.

 

the vent is to collect incoming fresh air depressurize it and direct it for inside the cab


it is an integral component for the air conditioning system


block it and you risk the system scavenging bad air for your cabin air


I just checked the parking lot here with binoculars over 230 vehicles visible from my top floor corner window
all of them have vents like like my tacoma. up front near the bottom of the windshield..


I guess all of them are junk and the engineers were asleep that day


In my limited experience with automotive forum culture, the prevailing mindset seems to be that automotive engineers are largely incompetent buzzkillers, but armchair enthusiasts whose automotive engineering experience is simply that they happen to own a vehicle suddenly know more than anyone else about how to build a vehicle for real world use.


It is not possible to engineer any vehicle to withstand all possible weather conditions without some unexpected and downright inconvenient human intervention, such and cleaning and scraping ice out of problematic areas. Main battle tanks of the worlds armies also get stopped dead if you let the filters clog up with ice and snow.

 

it is defintely rust spots in the paint. Some have bigger rust rings around them than others.

 

Funny
you can't even see the vent if you do not lift the hood so I know you are full of shit and have nothing good to add....

 

And they have a button on the dash that cuts off outside air....

So I don't see how it would do anything....
After all they would not have given us a button if it was a bad thing to cut off outside air....

 

here we go

1) I was helpful, I said pull the cowl and clean it out. you complained instead of saying thanks didn't know it was so easy to get in there...or whatever

2) blocking the outside vent, is completely different than hitting the recirc button. if you block outside vent and don't use recirc the system will try to scavenge air from engine compartment which might be fine for you folks in NC... but where I work, that would get noticed.

 

Yep and that would not get the block of ice formed around the hose and wire along with bottom arm inside...
Plus mine was more work I guess then yours and being at work in the parking lot I was not going to pull the wipper arms off and remove the screws holding in the cover and remove the rubber trim.

I fixed it. And it will not happen again.
mine was an easy fix....

 

Ok This just happened to me too.

This is what happened..... I had the Truck parked on a VERY slight incline in my driveway with the front end at the higher end. It snowed/sleeted rained for about 1 1/2 inches of slushy mess. The next day I did not need the truck so I let it sit and did not clean off the truck - however - the temperature and sun slightly started a very slow melt. The snow on the windshield did a "Flow" melt and freeze cycle and flowed down over the plastic cowl and into the vent - basically filling the windshield wiper arm enclosure with the melting soup. Then it froze overnight. This morning I cleaned off the windshield and wipers . When I started the vehicle and turned on the wipers - they moved an inch or two and stopped. I Immediately shut off the vehicle (as the wipers will continue to try to get "Home" before shut off.

I checked and better cleaned the wipers arm area - completely removing all the ice and frozen slush from around the arms - Without opening the hood - as I did not expect the area under the hood to be affected. Retrying the Wipers proved futile and Again stopped and pulled the fuse thinking it had blown. Nope. After some gentle persuasion I managed to get the wipers to move and back to the home position. I parked the tuck in the little sun we had and poured 1/2 gallon of windshield wiper deicer into the holes in the cowling - and let it sit a few hours.

Well it's now working. Hopefully I did not damage the armature/motor/linkage. I'll have to check it for the next few days ....

The Mix of the weather, temperature, flow ice was the root of the problem IMO - but I also think If I parked the truck the other way (and facing the sun )- it "might" have melted and drained better.. Besides the fact If was not lazy and cleaned off the slush it probably would not have happened ...

First time this has happened to me in the many years I've been driving. Just hope I did not mess up the system.