I recently purchased a 2000 Dodge Neon with 99,000 miles. Car was in an accident at some point. I tested the wipers on the test drive by pushing the lever forward so that the wiper fluid would clean the windshield. Worked fine. A couple of days later it began to rain. I noticed that the wipers wouldn‘t work on the intermittent, low or high settings (these are all the automatic wiper settings this model has.)The wipers still work when releasing fluid, and also in a manual fashion by pressing the lever down, but they won‘t work on automatic. Normally, when you turn the knob on the level, it clicks as it passes from one automatic setting to the other (i.e. from high to low, intermittent to low, etc.), but I noticed that the knob does not even do that. Does it sound like it‘s the knob/lever itself that‘s broken, since it works otherwise? Any idea how much this would cost to fix, or if it can be fixed at home? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
If you can hear the washer fluid pump trying to work then there may be ice or dirt clogging the tubes. If you don't hear the pump then make sure it is getting power by putting a 12 volt test light on its terminals while somebody in the car runs the washer. A new washer pump for a 2000 Neon is about $14.
Get hold of a cheap second hand wiper control unit, replace it with abit of time and patients, and see if it works :)
