Wipers sticking - continue when moved

Annoying fault, few years back I renewed the whole front wiper system in my Defender, OEM motor, spindles and cable. The old lot was noisy and worn.

But now for some odd reason the wipers get stuck in park, it's rather random and only tends to happen when they're either on intermittent or they're turned off momentarily. If left running continuously they tend to keep working as far as I've seen.

Funny thing is, once stuck they'll get going again if the wiper arms are wiggled or - even funnier - I learn across and smack the lower dash where the motor is mounted. Sometimes a big pothole will do it too.

Before pulling this apart and/or ordering another motor, does anyone have any thoughts on this? Many thanks.

Motor may be weak or getting a bit stiff but I recon a bad connection in that area more likely.

Had the same, or very similar. It tended to occur when the screen was left completely dry. Sometimes a good yank in the correct direction would solve the problem but never really understood the problem. I replaced the complete system, using genuine LR parts and now it appears to be okay. Only time will tell.

Thanks guys, I just took the cover off around the motor, ran intermittent and whenever the motor failed to do the following intermittent wipe a gentle tap to the end of the shaft with the circlip on it got it going again immediately.

Are your wiper arm pivots stiff, this can have an effect, what are the brushes like?

Everything seems fine in that regard, considering the old motor was fine but noisy and I replaced everything else as well it seems likely to be the motor itself. Just had a look and found the old motor, I'll take the new one out and have a look at it and if nothing obvious, replace it with the old one temporarily to see if everything returns to noisy-yet-normal.

I'm glad it's not just me who's had to hit the dash to get the wipers going! My 5year old daughter was trained to kick the dash when I said "wipers"!, when she wasn't with me I'd use my steering lock to reach the right area.
Eventually I cleaned and tighten all the contacts on the motor and since then it's been fine.

Is the motor not sticking due to a build up of crap. Give it a good clean

A good clean, replace the grease, check the worm gear on the motor spindle, and that the main wheel had no in and out free movement, then check the park switch.
It is a simple piece of kit which is usually overlooked when giving her a good servicing!

Thanks guys, had it all apart today. Plenty of grease along where the cable slides and around the worm gear, but took the main wheel out completely and gave the shaft out the back of it that sits within the motor housing plenty of grease as that was bone dry, along with plenty more as I reassembled it. Wiring is all sparkly clean, and the motor had plenty of power when I ran it with the wipers disconnected along with the wipers themselves having no resistance so the pivots are fine.

The brief test I did once back together had them working fine, and that was with a completely dry windscreen. Time will tell as it was always random when they'd start playing up, but hopefully this will have helped.

It usually comes down to an assortment of the simple things
Pleased to hear you've got it sorted.
Thanks for letting us know.

Good it is sorted.