wiper motor failure

[Zwilnik]

Had a similar problem with my Mini One 2001 the other night. After a nighttime motorway run in the rain and a short pitstop, I noticed my front wipers had stopped working when I pulled away. When I pulled over to check I noticed my right front headlight had gone off too (only on dipped, full beam was fine). Was recovered to home by the AA after he couldn't find a fault with the fuses or relays (didn't want to drive on one headlight as it would have been an instant stop by the police) and we checked it over the next day.
What we found was the headlamp socket was loose, so it had pulled out and arced while doing so, partially melting the socket. Easy fix, new socket.
I was worried about the wiper motor, in case the electrical surge from the headlight failure had fried it but having read these forums I thought I'd check the earthing and true to form it was a BMW design fault in the electrics (you'd think they'd waterproof the windscreen wipers!) and tapping a short lead from one of the mounting bolts on the wiper motor to an earth point to the left of the engine fixed it.