Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Feature Ask: I want variable wiper frequency

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
I have a question for the sPacific Northwet Model S owners who are dissatisfied with the operation of their cars' rain-sensing wipers: Have you had this feature on other vehicles and if so, have you been happy with it? I'm still awaiting the arrival of my Model S but I've owned cars with rain-sensing wipers from three other makes (Acura, Audi, and BMW) going back more than a decade, and while each implementation has its quirks, I personally consider them to be a huge improvement over conventional intermittent wipers.

In my cars without rain-sensing wipers, I find myself frequently fiddling with the intermittent dial as a way to deal with the micro-climate-based changes in precipitation; in my cars with rain-sensing wipers, it has almost always been "set and forget."

I'm genuinely interested to know if I'll find the Tesla implementation of rain-sensing wipers to be inferior to what I've experienced with other cars or if it's just a general preference for rain-sensing vs. conventional intermittent.
 
in my case, all my previous cars only had the regular time-interval based intermittent settings, none of them had auto/rain-sensing wipers. I had hopes the Model S wipers on auto would be "set and forget", but I don't find them to be anywhere near that at all. Not a huge deal, really. But not having any point of reference for auto-sensing wipers, I'm just not sure how the ones implemented on Model S are supposed to be better than the old-fashioned intermittent wipers
 
I have a question for the sPacific Northwet Model S owners who are dissatisfied with the operation of their cars' rain-sensing wipers: Have you had this feature on other vehicles and if so, have you been happy with it? I'm still awaiting the arrival of my Model S but I've owned cars with rain-sensing wipers from three other makes (Acura, Audi, and BMW) going back more than a decade, and while each implementation has its quirks, I personally consider them to be a huge improvement over conventional intermittent wipers.

In my cars without rain-sensing wipers, I find myself frequently fiddling with the intermittent dial as a way to deal with the micro-climate-based changes in precipitation; in my cars with rain-sensing wipers, it has almost always been "set and forget."

I'm genuinely interested to know if I'll find the Tesla implementation of rain-sensing wipers to be inferior to what I've experienced with other cars or if it's just a general preference for rain-sensing vs. conventional intermittent.

Seems to work well enough. The only issue I have is that, even at low sensitivity and light to moderate rainfall, it sets the wipers to max speed. I end up having to set it to manual slow speed.
 
Seems to work well enough. The only issue I have is that, even at low sensitivity and light to moderate rainfall, it sets the wipers to max speed. I end up having to set it to manual slow speed.

How about some "machine learning" ala autopilot for the wipers? If the car would record the rain sensor value and time each push of the single wipe button the software could figure our how "dry" I like my windshield and use that heuristic.

Get on it right after they finish the media player....
 
  • Like
Reactions: MorrisonHiker
All my previous vehicles had time-based intermittent. I believe auto-sense can work but it is unrealistic to believe that a single set of sensitivity settings would work well across the variety of rain conditions.
Agreed. As I said earlier-on in this thread, without a physically different knob allowing for intermittent user-variable timing, I think the most recent firmware changes were a great improvement, but can never be as good as what I had say in my former Lexus with adjustable intermittent wipers.

I just returned from a road-trip, and while not in Seattle, did have nearly 4 hours of intermittent rain from drizzle to torrential downpour causing freeway traffic to slow at times, traveling from the coast up to 4K' high desert -- and for the most part, I'm happy with what Tesla now has with two intermittent settings. Perhaps in a next gen Tesla, they will elect to put in a different physical stalk control that will eliminate this discussion. ;)
 
Our Model S is too sensitive on the lowest automatic wiper setting. It starts out about once every two seconds in very light rain, but then speeds up to once per second or even faster. I have to turn it off/on frequently to reset. Lately, I'm leaving it off and just pressing the button every five seconds or so.

Either we need more range in the intermittent variability or we are experiencing variances in how the rain sensor is installed/calibrated between cars. It could be that my sensor gets a really strong signal from drops while other vehicles are getting a really weak signal and thus do not wipe enough.

Sure will be nice when they figure this out.
 
+1. I've never found rain-sensing wipers to be even remotely as useful as manually adjustable intermittent. I thought it was just because I'm an old Luddite.
I'm the same kind of old Luddite! My beef isn't against Tesla's rain sensing wipers, it's against all rain sensing wipers. You can't get a high-end car without this 'feature', which is really a bug. I think I've had rain sensing in six cars beginning with a 2004 mercedes and there has never been an implementation that handles rain, particularly light misty rain, as well as manual intermittent. Depending in the size of drops in light rain the wipers either sweep too often or not often enough. In any rain sensing car I find I sometimes need to just periodically hit the single sweep button with a fingertip, emulating manual timed sweep.
 
  • Like
Reactions: WannabeOwner
I'm the same kind of old Luddite! My beef isn't against Tesla's rain sensing wipers, it's against all rain sensing wipers. You can't get a high-end car without this 'feature', which is really a bug. I think I've had rain sensing in six cars beginning with a 2004 mercedes and there has never been an implementation that handles rain, particularly light misty rain, as well as manual intermittent. Depending in the size of drops in light rain the wipers either sweep too often or not often enough. In any rain sensing car I find I sometimes need to just periodically hit the single sweep button with a fingertip, emulating manual timed sweep.
I owned BMW, MBZ and Lexus before Tesla. I agree with your general concern re my former German cars (of which Tesla also uses a Daimler wiper stalk), but as stated upthread, I had ZERO issues with my former Lexus that each had both standard slow & fast wiper speed along with variable intermittent. It appears the Japanese understand your concern and addressed it years ago in their pursuit of perfection ;) while the German brands and Tesla decided it is not as big of a deal and leave us with two intermittent settings.
 
To emphasize the point, I drove to work this morning (in the metro DC area) in light mist. It was not enough to trigger the rain sensing even on the high setting, but covered the windshield to the point of not being able to see in about 20 seconds. Still no wipe. I just used the stalk button the whole way. Super annoying, especially since my 1989 928 would have handled the situation perfectly. It's not just Tesla. It's all rain sensing wipers. It's just not a superior technology to infinitely adjustable intermittent in my opinion. It's great that this is all I have to complain about though. Well, for my ego's sake, I'd like the 70D to get a slight bump in acceleration. 4.9 sounds way better than 5.2. Elon? Maybe?
 
I owned BMW, MBZ and Lexus before Tesla. I agree with your general concern re my former German cars (of which Tesla also uses a Daimler wiper stalk), but as stated upthread, I had ZERO issues with my former Lexus that each had both standard slow & fast wiper speed along with variable intermittent. It appears the Japanese understand your concern and addressed it years ago in their pursuit of perfection ;) while the German brands and Tesla decided it is not as big of a deal and leave us with two intermittent settings.
Yes, all the cars I've owned that have the problem are either German or English.
 
+1. I've never found rain-sensing wipers to be even remotely as useful as manually adjustable intermittent. I thought it was just because I'm an old Luddite.

I had a 09 Mini Cooper S with auto sensing wipers, worked awesome and both my wife and I miss the feature in our present car.

But people need to understand the limiting factor in these systems is the very narrow field of view for the sensor. Rain drops are completely random and in large drops the system will be less precise. Yes every so often the Mini needed to be told to do a sweep.

I believe in the Mini they said the field of view was a 1 inch diameter area of the windshield, you could have a lot of water and still very little in a 1 inch area.

The key to a good system is a easy access wipe function for the driver that doesn't upset the auto function.

And when hit with heavy water from truck wheels you need to expect the system will take a second to react, that's how algorithms work
 
So much agreement. The rain sensing settings are fine for heavier rain but useless in lighter rain, or mist off a wet road with cars in front spraying it up. The top of the windshield (sensor location) is fairly clear, but the middle is wet.

Make one of the intermittent settings be manual, please.
 
When it first rained, I thought the windshield wipers were broken on my tesla that's how bad they operate.
I also couldn't believe there was no manual setting for adjusting the speed.
hell my 1977 Chevy Monza had that! I won't buy another one until some basic things on a Tesla model S are addressed, including the lack of a manual intermittent wiper knob or slider setting. I live in Indiana and have lived in Seattle and I can tell you the Tesla doesn't work in either in terms of different rain types. "Automatic everything" isn't always preferred Tesla.
 
So, quick update. This morning it was full on raining. It was raining hard enough that I turned the wipers to the full on position. At that point the wipers had been set on high intermittent and had not done a thing. Then, it started raining hard enough that I had the wipers on high. As an experiment, I put them back to high intermittent and the windshield quickly became completely covered (visibility zero), but the wipers did not operate. I just had a new windshield put in at the SC (due to damage present on my car from transport). The day before I took the car in for that, I had a software update (not sure exactly what, but 7.1.X). So, either the latest update killed the intermittent wipers, or something squirrely is going on with my camera. Before I call the SC, has anyone else noticed a significant change in the algorithm since the last update?
Thanks
 
I guess Tesla engineers have never tested the wipers outside of California or the lab? Maybe if one of the two auto sensing settings was changed to simple time-based intermittent wipers that would be better (I can't notice any useful difference between the two auto settings anyhow). As suggested, perhaps the time delay could be adjustable in the touchscreen settings, then no hardware changes required.
Even in CA they're not terribly worthwhile. I've resorted to manually controlling the wipers. It's a pain, but nothing else works.