Need Help - 1 Wiper not working on 535I

[vping]

My daughter has had the car up at school the past few months. All is well except today, the driver side wiper stopped working.

What can I expect in terms of a repair? I can either send it to a shop now OR hope it does not rain anytime soon and go up there to try and fix it. Of course today, it's been raining snowing cats and dogs up there.

Cheers,
Vince

[Bill R.]

The Nut on the wiper arm is probably worked its way loose and the splines have rounded off in the arm....Tighten the nut down really tight and it will force the splines into the arm.

[martyyn]

The wiper arm is designed to fail rather than the splines on the motor. If you replace the arm make sure you clean out the splines on the motor too. They often get clogged up with the arms splines.

I had this happen just the other week and a new arm was just the ticket. Took a while to get the arm off though it was so stuck on !

[vping]

Is it easy enough to see the post turning, IE easy enough for my daughter to be able to tell that this is the problem?

Once we determine this, where can I get a new cheap arm?

Cheers,
Vince

[martyyn]

Yep, if they arent stuck on it only takes a second to get the wiper arm off and you can use the tools in the tool kit and once off you can clearly see the wiper motor spindle turning. You can probably see it turning even with the wiper still on now I think about it. Just get a thin knive/edge, to score the spindle and you will see the soft metal coming out of them.

The only problem I had with my wipers were my drivers side (RHD for me) has an additional screw to give the blade some force onto the screen when driving at speed. I dont know if you'll have that or not, but it shouldnt take more than five mins to get the old one off, confirm its a problem, scrape the crap out, install the new one, tighten the nut and see it goes round when you flick the arm on the steering column.

I let me 8 year old to do it it was that easy :). Made sure there was a towel between him and the paint work first though !!

[shogun]

pics on mt website
FIXES - WIPERS (http://twrite.org/shogunnew/fixes/wipers.html)
wiper pressure system
BMW 7 -- Miscellanous -- Wiper tensioner repair/disable (http://bmwe32.masscom.net/dutch740/wipertensioner.htm)
wiper system replacement
BMW 7 -- Body electronics -- Wiper mechanism replacement (http://bmwe32.masscom.net/johan/wiper_mechanism/wiper_mechanism.html)

[shogun]

above is for E32, I just found E34 info how to replace the wiper linkage system
http://www.b-rm.de/wischer.pdf
German language, but the pics will do