wiper motor failure

[AJ_ONE]

I've followed the instructions on North American Motoring (posted above) on a '02 One. Took about 2 hours as it's quite fiddly (including confirming the fault).

The replacement motor comes attached to new linkage mechanism, but there's no chance of getting this out, so I swapped the motor unit only out (as per these instructions) as the exisitng linkage was not seized - I had originally wondered whether this had been the cause of the motor failure.

If you put the wiper arms back on and they are slightly out of position, they'll end up digging into the bonnet when you turn them on. Check you haven't knocked anything out by putting a bit of cardboard marked with an arrow over the spline temporarily and switching the wipers on, that will demonstrate the movement of the wiper arm without any damage.

[DrNorman]

02 cooper front wiper motor failed in heavy rain on the motorway last week. I have purchased a 2nd hand one for £50 from a breakers yard and was well prepared for a tricky job ahead.

I have managed to disconnect the old motor but after much fiddling and frustration I cant seem to get the old motor out. Have tested the new motor by connecting the wiring harness and it works so i know it is at fault.

Does anyone have any tips for removing the motor without removing the cowl? I dont want to mess with the brake servo to make more room and have contemplated cutting the plastic surround to get the bugger out
Any ideas or tips on what to remove to get the job finished or which way is best to maneuvre the pump to get it in and out?

[NeuroBeaker]

I suppose this business of the failing wiper motor is something BMW were trying to replicate from the original Mini. My Dad's favourite story about his Cooper back in the 1970's was when the wipers failed in the pouring rain when he and my Mom were on a long road trip.

So my Dad tied string to the tops of the wiper blades and ran it round to the inside of the car through the windows in a big loop. Then my Mom had to swift her hands left and right to move the string and hence clean the windscreen whilst they drove to a scrap yard. My Dad paid the scrap yard attendant £11 and removed the wiper motor off another Mini in the pipe. He stuck it onto his Mini and it worked great until they sold the car many years later.

Just think of it as a nostalgic thing... your MINI was following in the footsteps of its ancestors.

All the best,
Andrew.

[mab01uk]

Quote: Originally Posted by ARCrawford (original)

I suppose this business of the failing wiper motor is something BMW were trying to replicate from the original Mini. My Dad's favourite story about his Cooper back in the 1970's was when the wipers failed in the pouring rain when he and my Mom were on a long road trip.

So my Dad tied string to the tops of the wiper blades and ran it round to the inside of the car through the windows in a big loop. Then my Mom had to swift her hands left and right to move the string and hence clean the windscreen whilst they drove to a scrap yard. My Dad paid the scrap yard attendant £11 and removed the wiper motor off another Mini in the pipe. He stuck it onto his Mini and it worked great until they sold the car many years later.

Just think of it as a nostalgic thing... your MINI was following in the footsteps of its ancestors.

All the best,
Andrew.

I upgraded my first Mk1 classic Mini in the 1970's to the luxury of self-parking wipers from a later model in the breakers, followed even later by 2 speeds and electric washers instead of the standard Smiths manual hand pump plunger under the dash. Toggle switch extensions were also fitted so I could just about reach the wiper switch with a (static) seat belt on !
It was much easier to get to the wiper motor and rack assembly on it than with my current MINI though, despite being very cramped under the bonnet..............
Thanks everyone so far for the many useful tips and info in this thread for diy wiper repairs.

[Randall Raines]

Quote: Originally Posted by DrNorman (original)

Does anyone have any tips for removing the motor without removing the cowl? I dont want to mess with the brake servo to make more room and have contemplated cutting the plastic surround to get the bugger out
Any ideas or tips on what to remove to get the job finished or which way is best to maneuvre the pump to get it in and out?

You are just changing the motor & not the complete mechanism .

I'm sure that you can't get the motor out without loosening / removing the plastic bulk-head panel (UK RHD models), to do that you'll need to undo & remove the bracket that holds the expansion tank & the power steering reservoir and whatever that entails, also on the earlier models, the engine mount can get in the way, later models have a different engine mount and there is plenty of room.

The bulk-head panel is held on with a screw clip on the left hand side (looking under the bonnet facing the MINI) the expansion tank & PS reservoir are held on with three 10 mm bolts, once they are loosened of pull them forward and there are four 13 mm bolts behind remove these & remove the bracket, there is a brake servo vacuum pipe clipped on behind the panel, unclip this, and it should just pull out (COOPER S's have two small bolts also, near the air-box) they can be a little jammed in and can be a little harder to get back in but that panel actually splits and just the top section comes off .

[DrNorman]

Thanks for the help!
Got the motor changed last night, in the end I just loosened the control arm/pantograph mechanism by removing the wipers and accessing the nut securing the passenger side wiper spline - this can be done by removing the other plastic baffle.
Then with the contol arm loose I could move it down and negotiate the motor around the left side.
Looking at the old motor it was clear it had burnt out! I suggest not using the full speed wiper setting when driving on the motorway for long distances!!

[trickyricky750@hotma]

Just had a very near miss that I thought I should let you know about.

My partner Jo has an 02 plate Mini One and whilst driving to work last Thursday her windscreen wipers stopped working in heavy rain.
Various people at work tried new fuses, one collegue tried in vain to check it with a dvm but couldn't access anything due to lack of space.

She eventually called the AA and the patrol man turned up, checked fuses, relays etc etc and promptly gave up saying that a tow truck was required to take them both home.
I'd already been on this site to see if there was a quick fix or to see if this was a common problem. I could of cried when I saw how much BMW were asking for a replacement.

When they pulled up at the house and unloaded the mini the patrol man decided to check one last thing.... The earthing of the wiper motor. With ignition and wipers on he shorted the case of the motor to the chassis of the car. Bingo - the wipers started again!

He then made a metal bracket, fastened it to the chassis of the car and bent it so that it also made contact with the wiper motor.

One week on and the wipers are working like new!!

Please check the earth connection before taking you money to the BMW garage for them to do the above but charge you £400 for a new motor.

Sorry for waffling but two mins reading this is much better for your bank balance!!

Cheers,
Richard.

[miniliz2]

Further to all the good and useful threads that have gone before . . . and having just succeeded in changing my 01 Cooper wiper motor, I took the chance to record the operation in photos.
Let's be honest . . . . it is a bugger of a job . . if you don't know how, but BMW are taking the mick if they get the sort of prices quoted on this forum for this job. Once done, it should be very easy to redo it in around 1 1/2 hours and I'm sure the word is out in the dealerships how to do it easily. The simple trick is, (as Randall quite rightly states above) bite the bulet and remove the tophalf of the plastic bulkhead. It's very easy to do and then you have no access problems. The only real problem is undoing and reconnecting the wiring block. Anyway, the attached documents have the photos in them. good luck.
Mike

[sarahb67]

hi Guys,
Quick bit of info if you find your windscreen wiper failing mid swipe. I was told I was going to need a new motor, as all seemed fine with the fuses etc. When the AA turned up he discovered it was the earth wire making a poor connection (this might also cause an intermittent fault to). Apparently the motor is rubber mounted and where the earth makes contacts just gets dirty etc and eventually fails. It was fixed by attaching a new earth wire from the motor to the body of the car. Once attached it fired up first time.
Unfortunately people can be advised they need a new motor and in the process of fitting a new one the earth connection is reestablished but it falsely appears to be the change of motor that has solved the problem.
hope this helps
Sarah

[ypvisa]

My wife's wipers just stopped recently on her 2002 cooper (has been snowing here and very cold). After reading several threads I checked the fuses and relays without any luck.
Today I checked the motor's earth and ran a new cable from one of the motor's mounting bolts to the -ve terminal of the battery - worked a treat!

Definately worth a try, have read this on 5 or 6 forums but never thought I'd be that lucky but I was!

Hope this helps someone cos I'm well chuffed.

[Lauren23]

hiya, i have the same problem and just about to book it in to get motor changed but first id like to check the earth...

dont mean to sound daft but how do i check the earth on the motor and wher is it?? xx

[twids]

Just wanted to say a huge thanks to everyone's posts on this thread and my wonderful Dad.

My wipers stopped working after ice and snow. We checked the obvious like the fuses and the car was booked in for a new wiper motor fitting. Fortunately the motors were on back order and the repair had to be delayed and this is when I found this thread. Mine was also the earth lead. My wonderful father replaced this for me and the wipers are now working and he has saved me about £200

[minilifecrisis]

As there have been no posts to this thread since last winter, thought I'd just say that I've had the same problem: wipers stopped working two weeks ago when the UK had that big freeze and snow fall. I have a 2002 Mini Cooper (Right hand drive). The wiper fuse was fine, the relays were fine.

Like Lauren23 above, I didn't know where to start as even though I used the excellent Word document guide posted above, I still wasn't sure where to attach the ground lead to. So I removed the expansion tank and the plastic cowling as suggested (which took the bulk of the time). Then I was able to see where the motor was. Hopefully from the pictures I've uploaded it will make sense where you will need to connect the ground wire.

IMG_1984.jpg shows both ends of the grounding strap. On the right of the picture, you can see a U-shaped black wire terminating on a silver-coloured piece of metal. That is the mounting point for the Motor (which is the cause of this issue, if only they had mounted it directly on the chassis!). I put one end of the grounding strap on the bottom of the three bolts (they are arranged in an upside-down triangle).

On the top left of the same image, just above-left of the black and yellow cap (of the brake fluid tank?) you can see the other end of this grounding strap: the black lead curves up and to the right, then there's some silver and finally the gold coloured nut.

IMG_1978.jpg (purely for your interest) shows where the motor is, hidden away under a plastic cover. Just to prove it is actually behind the silver coloured plate, in case you don't feel like taking all the other stuff off! I think it should be possible to access just by removing the plastic grill on the driver's side.

I'm a complete mechanic-newbie, was terrified in fact and even had to go out and buy a socket set. But I'm glad I did - it cost me £6 for the socket set and £7 for the ground strap, plus a few hours reading forums and 2 hours of my time this morning. I'm pretty pleased as I couldn't have afforded £100 let alone the £400 that some people have been quoted.

[tomwexler]

Just wanted to add my thanks to miniliz2 for the excellent instructions. My windscreen wipers gave up after the recent snow and ice, and after reading these forums I concluded that the motor was knackered (having tested the earth first). The replacement part was £105 from BMW, and the job took me about 2-3 hours: I'm a complete novice at this sort of work. Still, I was very pleased not to pay the c. £380 for BMW to fit the replacement.

Just a couple of notes that I think might add to Miniliz2's instructions, especially for novices like me:

1) Remove the battery cover before trying to remove the plastic 'bulkhead'. For reference, the bulkhead is called 'PARTITION RIGHT' in the BMW catalogue, part 51717148792)

2) There are a couple of pipes clipped on to the bulkhead which have to be unclipped before it can be removed: one in front of it at the drivers side (very obvious) and one that runs behind it in the centre of the car (less obvious).

3) I struggled to unplug the motor connection until I worked out that I could wiggle the motor until it was completely free of the bodywork, which made everything much simpler.

4) I trashed the plastic screw trying to remove it with an ill-fitting screwdriver, and in the end just cut it out using snips. Fortunately a replacement part was about 20p from BMW (part no. 07130702966, 'EXPANDING RIVET')

[rosslewis]

As with many members of the forum i had problem with front Wiper Motor not working.
this appears to be a common problem with a simple solution.
simply run a new earth wire from any of the 3 wiper motor mounting bolts (accessed by removing plastic air vent on bonnet).
connect other end to any good earth point/bolt in engine bay.
this worked perfect for me and is well worth a try before paying for expensive replacement.
i will post photos if required.
Rosslewis