Rain sensitive wipers

[kspearin]

I just recently had my windshield replaced and the damn sensor wouldn't work either. Thanks to this forum I think we have found the problem with the clear plastic pads not being there anymore. They just ordered new and I will try it and see. Thanks for the info on this.

[04SCTLS]

I absolutely hated the rain sensitive wipers on my 04.
They weren't sensitive enough even on the highest setting.
The windshield would get much too blury for my liking before they came on and then would take much too long to repeat.
Driving back from getting the car 200 miles through a rain storm I had to manually turn them on and off a lot and started getting quite upset.
Lincoln told me there was nothing I could do about this.
I covered the sensor spot on the windshield with dark tint and that helped as the manual said the wipers are more sensitive at night
but eventually I was delighted to discover that if you pull the connector off the sensor the wipers work like normal intermittent wipers.
A friend of mine knows a manager at a local lincoln dealer and he said there were so many compaints about the rain sensitive wipers they were discontinued after the 04 model year.
I'm a bit bemused reading this post but perhaps the first gen LS's worked better than mine.

[shorod]

I had an '04 LS and really miss the rain sensitive wipers from that car. My '07 Infiniti G35s does not have rain sensitive wipers and I think that is the feature I miss most from my LS. I thought they worked very well once I learned there were multiple sensitivity settings for them.

-Rod

[04SCTLS]

Maybe the sensor in my car is defective or there's some other issue.
How soon does your wiper sweep the glass in a feignt beginning rain.
I want it to sweep within 3 seconds of the glass getting drizzle on it.
I also found that if you put a switch on the power wire to the sensor you can have both the rain sensitive wipers and the regular intermittent ones depending on the conditions.
So far I prefer the regular intermittent setup.

[shorod]

I don't understand the switch on the power wire. Without adding a switch, you can turn the stalk switch to the intermittant position if I remember correctly. Do you have an owner's manual for your car? If not, you can download one from the Lincoln website.

I'm not sure that the wipers would be triggered in a light drizzle, depending on where the drizzle happened to hit the windshield, but certainly before visibility would be significantly impacted (IMHO).

-Rod

[04SCTLS]

I carefully read the owners manual.
The wipers can only be set fast, slow or different stages of rain sensitive. There are no intermittent settings that work independant
of the rain sensing or any way to increase the sensitivity other than covering the sensor eye with tint.
By a switch I mean that you hook one inline with one of the 3 wires running to the rain sensor and mount it in the woodgrain near the dash.
When you put the switch to the off position it neatly disables the rain sensing "feature" and the wipers revert to normal operation.
I want my wipers to sweep every 2 seconds when there's no more than 4 or 5 drops per square inch of light drizzle.
This is a personal preference here so I was really happy I figured out how to disable (a to me) annoying system and make the wipers work like normal.
I just posted this for those who may also find the rain sensing wipers less than satisfactory and wanted a way to turn them off.
They can always be hooked back up in a few seconds to sell the car
with this feature.