2003 accent wiper controls only partially working

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dlb
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2003 accent wiper controls only partially working

Post by dlb »

The windshield wiper controls on my wife's Hyundai Accent have been acting weird for a few months now. They still work fine on intermittent and low speed but the mist/single swipe function no longer works at all, and the high speed setting works but really slowly. The fuses are all fine so I figured it was the controls in the switch itself. I just replaced it with one from a wrecker but the symptoms haven't changed at all so either the used switch is faulty in the exact same way (which seems unlikely) or something else is going on. I tested the voltage at the plug that connects to the wiper motor and of the five terminals, one of them has 12+ volts all the time, which doesn't make sense to me, and none of the others show any voltage regardless of what I have the wiper controls set to. Anyone have any ideas on what else it might be or better ways to test the components?
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splatterdog
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Re: 2003 accent wiper controls only partially working

Post by splatterdog »

At the motor- Mist/hi setting should provide ground for the yellow wire. A headlight jumpered in to that and the fused pink wire will load test the circuit. If the light is bright, circuit good..

Considering the switch change did nothing that pretty much leaves the motor or a connection issue.
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Petros
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Re: 2003 accent wiper controls only partially working

Post by Petros »

it sounds like something either ahead or after the switch. you will need a wiring diagram to find where your wires are coming from, and going to. and than check each one of those contacts to see where the problem actually is. sometimes studying the wire diagram for the circuits in question, you can guess the cause and check it out.

those multi switches are often wired in really odd ways, not even sure why they do that. On my 86 Nissan it had separate switches for left and right head light within the multi switch, when there is no reason to ever have separate circuits since the head lights are always on at the same time. On an old 72 Datsun (Nissan) the head lights were always wired "hot", and the wire running to the switch was just a ground wire, IOW the switch was the ground that made the lights come on. Both of these illogical multi switch conditions caused me lots of frustration trying to diagnose why the head lights did not come on, once I figured that out, fixing it was straight forward.
'87 Tercel 4wd SR5 (current engine swap project)
'84 Tercel 4wd (daily driver, with on going mods)
'92 Mazda MPV 4wd (wife's daily driver)
'85 Tercel 4wd DLX auto(daughter's daily driver)
'01 Honda Civic (other daughter's daily driver)
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