MASTER THREAD: Auto Wiper functionality, complaints, praise, etc.

[jabloomf1230]

In earlier cars, the wipers used a moisture sensor located at the outside bottom of the windshield and as water dripped down, a moisture sensor was activated. More recent non-Tesla cars use an infrared LED combined with a sensor that is located on the inside of the windshield, directly in front of the interior rearview mirror. The more light from the LED that is scattered by the rain, the faster the wipers sweep. Another system uses an ultrasonic sensor that measures the vibration of the windshield cause by the impact of rain drops.

I have never read how the Tesla wiper system works, but it probably uses one (or more) of the front cameras to determine how much rain is blurring the vision system.

The problem with all these approaches is that they use a sensor in a fixed location. And none of them have a sensor that is located in the driver's field of vision. All the present systems adapt slowly to changing moisture conditions and none in my opinion are a perfect substitute for manual control of the wipers.

 

[enemji]

No idea what the weather or rain is like in Texas tbf. In UK we have very light rain a lot of the time, especially dring in the foothills of the Pennines, like you’re driving through cloud..we also have fog which is low clouds essentially. That is quite challenging for auto wipers, not necessarily wet enough for full wipers nor slow enough for single intermittent ones. We also get a lot of road spray after rainfall due to shitty drainage on motorways, no car manufacturers (that I have driven) have come up with a decent solution to this. BMW, Merc, VW, Ford, GM, Toyota, Hyundai, Land Rover, Volvo to name but the main cars I’ve driven. The wipers either go too fast for the amount of water so smear the screen or too slow and don’t clear it. Manual overide takes place a lot over here in my experience

Lucky me. In TX, we have Rain & then some drizzles. No fog. No cloud on the roads.

 

[Judababa]

I’ve had my car about a month. A couple of times the wipers came on all of a sudden, while I was driving, and it was a clear, sunny day with no moisture in the air at all. On the freeway this evening, they came on full blast, really fast. Then slowed down but stayed on. I was unable to make them stop no matter how many times I hit the off switch. The first time it happened I put them on manual instead of Auto, but the car returned the setting to Auto. What the what????

 

[jabloomf1230]

I’ve had my car about a month. A couple of times the wipers came on all of a sudden, while I was driving, and it was a clear, sunny day with no moisture in the air at all. On the freeway this evening, they came on full blast, really fast. Then slowed down but stayed on. I was unable to make them stop no matter how many times I hit the off switch. The first time it happened I put them on manual instead of Auto, but the car returned the setting to Auto. What the what????

It's either a software bug or bugs . The latter is more common. If bug splats interfere with the front camera's vision, it triggers the wipers in an attempt to clean that part of the windshield. If you have FSD active, the wipers are forced to be set to auto and can't be overridden by the driver.

 

[chinney]

I had an opportunity to extensively try out the auto wiper system again on a day with a lot of driving through variable, constantly-changing rain that ranged from a light mist to a fairly heavy downpour. I had not used the auto function in a while due to past disappointment with it. I would rate the current state of the auto wiper system on my Model 3 as being mediocre. The biggest problem during my recent testing was over-sensitivity, meaning the wipers were wiping too quickly - either slightly too quickly or very much too quickly - for a given rain condition about half of the time.

'Mediocre' is an improvement over 'unusable', but it is still not great. It would be nice if Tesla offered an update allowing for adjustments to the sensitivity of the auto wiping function, depending on individual preferences and weather conditions. A redesign of the manual wiper control interface allowing easier access to the controls and also more granular adjustability (especially at the low end) also would be nice.

But I see no immediate prospect of any of these improvements coming. Tesla seems to be satisfied with the wiper controls, but many of their customers are not. For me it is easily the weakest aspect of an otherwise stellar automobile.

 

[DopeGhoti]

In the interest of adding another data point to the pool, a couple days ago there were some unexpected downpours coincident with a power outage. I decided to go for a drive (mainly for the free contactless car wash courtesy of Nature). The rain conditions were highly variant over the course of my drive, including everything from misting and sprinkles to what I can only describe as torrential blattering. During the worst of it, naturally Autosteer was unavailable (and indeed undesired), but I would describe the activity of the wipers when set to 'Auto' as nearly perfect. It could arguably have been slow to get less aggressive as the rain lessened, and quick to get more so as it increased, but not so much that I was nonplussed- it seemed to have been erring on the side of more wiping rather than less which would be my preference for an automated system such as this.

 

[Pagemakers]

Still the worst wipers in any car I’ve owed and I like my Tesla!

 

[DopeGhoti]

Honestly for my money the worst thing about the Tesla is the lack of a rear windscreen wiper. (at least in the context of this thread)

 

[Occhis]

Why can’t Tesla get to turn lights on when wipers are on. Lights will only turn on if it’s dark enough. If there’s a sun shower or bright sky no matter how heavy the rain falls, lights will not come on. Every other car company does it.

 

[Candleflame]

Why can’t Tesla get to turn lights on when wipers are on. Lights will only turn on if it’s dark enough. If there’s a sun shower or bright sky no matter how heavy the rain falls, lights will not come on. Every other car company does it.

i find that odd too, especially given that the car knows if its wet or rainy.
I guess the argument is that the car already has DRLs on for better visibility for other cars.

 

[Occhis]

i find that odd too, especially given that the car knows if its wet or rainy.
I guess the argument is that the car already has DRLs on for better visibility for other cars.

Yes, but no tail lights with DRLs. More likely to get rear ended in heavy rain.

 

[Candleflame]

Yes, but no tail lights with DRLs. More likely to get rear ended in heavy rain.

tbh not sure why it doesnt turn on the rear lights all the time. They are quite stylish anyway.

 

[rotarypower101]

Why can’t Tesla get to turn lights on when wipers are on. Lights will only turn on if it’s dark enough. If there’s a sun shower or bright sky no matter how heavy the rain falls, lights will not come on. Every other car company does it.

Possible it is an intentional incremental efficiency profile to conserve power they seem to be able to get away with?




Curious why wipers are still an issue after this much time on that many cars , this is the same company that is working on FSD and AI via cameras that control far more complex problems, but can't get wipers and headlight to respond in a logical desirable way?

Has anyone read a DIY solution to take back command of those systems with control systems that have worked more reliably in the past?

As an Oregonian living in the PNW wipers that don't work at a high level of proficiency is infuriating on a regular basis, so much so I constructed my own control system on a different platform to "infinitely" modulate speed with NO stepwise function, correcting the control pattern and noises caused by mistimed wipes or incorrect transit speed wipes.

Fairly confident much more capable people could override these existing systems seamlessly integrating them and fixing the main problems with basic control systems and logic.

 

[Candleflame]

Possible it is an intentional incremental efficiency profile to conserve power they seem to be able to get away with?




Curious why wipers are still an issue after this much time on that many cars , this is the same company that is working on FSD and AI via cameras that control far more complex problems, but can't get wipers and headlight to respond in a logical desirable way?

Has anyone read a DIY solution to take back command of those systems with control systems that have worked more reliably in the past?

As an Oregonian living in the PNW wipers that don't work at a high level of proficiency is infuriating on a regular basis, so much so I constructed my own control system on a different platform to "infinitely" modulate speed with NO stepwise function, correcting the control pattern and noises caused by mistimed wipes or incorrect transit speed wipes.

Fairly confident much more capable people could override these existing systems seamlessly integrating them and fixing the main problems with basic control systems and logic.

i think the camera just struggles to see drizzle.... like shoot a picture in light rain and you cant even see on the picture that its raining. they perform best when its mid-steady rain.

 

[adsheff]

But even with heavy rain, they often work apart from the very first wipe - on mine there is always a delay while it thinks before starting the wipers, which gives you 2-5 seconds of not being able to see anything until they decide to start. Also, often they will keep going even after the rain has stopped, and start squeaking on a dry screen. Just generally a bit rubbish.

 

[heavyD]

We recently got some snow and it did everything backwards. During heavy snow the speed was too slow and during light snow it was going full speed. I had to turn it off as said above the noise of dry wiping gets annoying.

 

[BigNick]

i think the camera just struggles to see drizzle.... like shoot a picture in light rain and you cant even see on the picture that its raining. they perform best when its mid-steady rain.

Last time I drove in a light mist, I had to manually wipe every 30 seconds or so. If the drops are large enough, auto-wipers work OK. But for mist and road spray, the auto-wipers are virtually useless.

 

[Need]

Last time I drove in a light mist, I had to manually wipe every 30 seconds or so. If the drops are large enough, auto-wipers work OK. But for mist and road spray, the auto-wipers are virtually useless.

Same here, but I found that the auto wipe seems to be more "proactive" when you are driving faster. When I was leaving my neighborhood, I drove slow (under 20) and I can see the drizzle on the windshield just slowly built up after the initial wipe when you change from Park to Drive. I don't see how the camera NOT seeing the water building up on the windshield. But as soon as I got to the road where there was no houses on the side of the road, I increase speed to like 40 and it would wipe normally with the exact same amount of drizzle.

 

[enemji]

I don’t have FSD and wipera and AP works amazing in drizzles as well as heavy rains

 

[Pagemakers]

I don’t have FSD and wipera and AP works amazing in drizzles as well as heavy rains

Are Tesla paying you to say that?

The wipers are sh1t. Period.