Auto Wipers are awful

[akenham]

I see you only recently got your M3. Have you done much driving at night in the rain yet?
We are heading into a British winter where driving in the dark in the rain are likely to be a much more common for many of us than they have been for the last 6 months. Lets see if you feel the same way in 6 months?

Your point is well made that my experience is short so perhaps I should perhaps make that clearer or even keep quiet

Sadly, I think nearly all of my 1500 miles so far have been in various states of rain FWIW (drizzle, spray, mizzle, heavy downpours, high winds & storms) - but I readily admit it's possible that I'm getting a skewed rosy view.

Still, so far it doesn't feel a lot worse in terms of interventions than the mercedes system I've just left.

Caveat: I'm in the East of England so we do normally have lower/lighter rainfall than the west which could be colouring my experience too. My recent Wales trip was cancelled which would have been a good test no doubt.

 

[Pagemakers]

Tried auto again for about 4 minutes yesterday and it was 4 minutes too much.

Dark grey day, light rain and the wipers were going like the clappers. Then stop. Then madness again. Blood pressure increase 5 fold!

My experience of auto-wipers is nothing short of utter crap.

 

[Jason71]

Your point is well made that my experience is short so perhaps I should perhaps make that clearer or even keep quiet

Sadly, I think nearly all of my 1500 miles so far have been in various states of rain FWIW (drizzle, spray, mizzle, heavy downpours, high winds & storms) - but I readily admit it's possible that I'm getting a skewed rosy view.

Still, so far it doesn't feel a lot worse in terms of interventions than the mercedes system I've just left.

Caveat: I'm in the East of England so we do normally have lower/lighter rainfall than the west which could be colouring my experience too. My recent Wales trip was cancelled which would have been a good test no doubt.

I find it is slower to wipe at night and having water on the screen at night is worse than day since if a car comes the other way the refraction blinds you even on dip.

 

[adsheff]

There was a big improvement a little while ago, so can only hope they will keep on improving.

 

[Jason71]

There was a big improvement a little while ago, so can only hope they will keep on improving.

my guess is that it is a good as they can make it with the current hardware so not holding my breath.

 

[Siciliano]

I've only had the car a few months now, but my experience has been that it's not nearly sensitive enough. The other day I had it on auto and it was abysmal - the wipers engaged only once in the blue.

It was more of a drizzle, but sometimes heavier - not a steady rain at all, which is when auto wipers are clearly most needed. I had to keep checking if they were even on auto, and had to constantly hit the stalk button to manually wipe. I ended up just switching between the "I" and "II" setting, which of course isn't ideal since I'm constantly taking my eyes off of the road.

They definitely need a software update to add sensitivity settings 1 through 4 to auto mode like almost every other car with auto wipers. My Jaguar had this, and my Audi before that, and both worked absolutely flawlessly every single time...

I'm going to try a hefty coating of RainX on the windshield to see if that remedies the issue. I've read that the increased beading from hydrophobic coatings increases the efficiency of the auto setting - I guess we'll see! I'll put some on the rear window also for good measure...

 

[Pagemakers]

They’ve had years to fix the wipers and they haven’t really gotten any better.

I think this is really as good as it’s going to get.

 

[kelvin 660]

Let us know how the rain-x works and if its an improvement. Thanks...

 

[adsheff]

Really wouldn't recommend rain-x. I put it on the windscreen and looked great at the start, but very quickly became a big greasy mess when mixed with winter road spray and wiping. Took a lot of cleaning with fairy liquid and a few months to remove it.

For the other windows which don't use wipers it works nicely however.

 

[Iain]

My wipers seem to be no better or worse than our other car, a Mercedes GL450. On a lightly different not I was in very heavy rain recently and was incredibly impressed with how the autopilots radar was working to keep me safe. The car reacted perfectly to cars I couldn’t even see slowing unexpectedly. It was definitely a great extra level of safety.

 

[Medved_77]

Has anyone tried applying Gyeon Wet Coat to the windshield? (instead of rain)

I've applied it on every other panel on the car and it works great but didn't do the windshield for potential safety reasons.

 

[MrBadger]

Autoglym Polar Protect seems to be a very similar product to Gyeon Wet Coat, except is is applied by snow foam lance and rinsed off. It specifically says not to apply directly to windscreen, although overspray is acceptable (difficult to avoid) but should be cleaned off with glass cleaner.

 

[Drew57]

Initially I thought the auto wipers (& headlights) were great but as others have mentioned, mine also go dance crazy with light rain so I have to press the RH wheel & tell the car to change the setting to II, III etc. On the rare occasions that doesn't work, hit the LH stalk button which slows them just enough whilst the wiper card appears on screen, requiring me to select another setting. Stupid & unnecessary in both cases.

(...as for headlights, they seem to come on almost every time I use the car so my daytime startup routine now includes: open settings, change lights to either off or sidelights then drive off... v annoying)

 

[Pagemakers]

I can’t see how spraying anything on the screen will change the behaviour of the wipers.

 

[seadog]

I found the auto wipers worked fairly well. Gave the whole car a good coating of Rain X (if you have prime it's only £3 for a 200ml bottle on Amazon at the moment by the way). I have switched the wipers off altogether now and just use the stalk end manually if needed. Water sheeting away well above 30-40mph. Really wanted to put on a long lasting coat but have heard they can be quite tricky to apply successfully so just went with the Rain X as it was cheap and you can't really go wrong.

 

[Adopado]

I can’t see how spraying anything on the screen will change the behaviour of the wipers.

I believe that people think the different beading pattern on the screen might help the camera analysis ... bit of a long shot in my opinion!

 

[LongRanger]

This time next week will have chance to report back on ceramic coating results including specific glass treatment, it will be using SB3 coatings. Hoping the glass stuff is also suitable for the b-pillar / side cameras.

 

[MrBadger]

Hoping the glass stuff is also suitable for the b-pillar / side cameras.

Do we know if the B pillar camera covers are glass or polycarbonate etc?

I'm tempted to coat the roof glass with Gtechnic G1 but its only for glass, otherwise its G5 but thats less long lasting.

 

[rincewind]

Do we know if the B pillar camera covers are glass or polycarbonate etc?

I'm tempted to coat the roof glass with Gtechnic G1 but its only for glass, otherwise its G5 but thats less long lasting.

B pillars are glass (99% sure). G1 for the whole roof will cost you... I've just waxed my roof and it's lovely. I use G1 on the windscreen and the back window, Rain X on the sides.

 

[DarkNightP3D]

The wipers are absolutely terrible. They either don’t come on with substantial condensation on the windshield or they wipe at full speed in mist or when stopped at a stoplight.

Every other car I’ve owned, even cars without auto wipers, have had speed sensitivity where at stop lights they substantially reduce the frequency of wipes. The Tesla will be sitting there at Max wiping speed with no moisture on the glass. People that have their wipers on high speeds for no reason is a pet peeve of mine, so when my car does it, it drives me absolutely crazy. The auto wipers and lack of true blind spot monitoring, complete lack of cross traffic detection and reverse autonomous braking are in my opinion glaring flaws that should have been addressed long ago.