MASTER THREAD: Auto Wiper issues

[Accelerate]

Could it be that the windshield is dirty at the camera cluster? I was (mildly) impressed with the addition of fluid to the auto-wipers after getting FSD beta.

 

[Shelburne]

I've had rain sensing wipers on three other cars: a 2002 Grand Cherokee a 2011 Volvo and a 2017 Volvo. My 2020 M3's rain sensing wipers are a joke compared to the ones on those other 3 cars. I can't ever remember being dissatisfied or annoyed with the feature in the other cars, but I am consistently annoyed with how the rain sensing wipers work or don't work on my M3. When it rains they frequently just fail to operate at all unless I push the button on the end of the stalk or take them out of auto mode. Other times, on completely sunny days, the will mysteriously start to wipe the completely dry windshield.

One other thing I've noticed is that they seem to work more accurately the faster I am going. Perhaps Tesla thinks I should be doing 100 MPH on rainy, wet roads.

This is no longer a cutting edge technology, folks, and it's ridiculous that it works so poorly on my M3.

 

[GrandWazoo]

So I read through this long thread and couldn't find anything about this part of my question. When I turn the auto wipers off, it seems to turn back on again when I engage autopilot. Is this by design? Is there a way to have autopilot on and auto wipers off?

 

[srs5694]

So I read through this long thread and couldn't find anything about this part of my question. When I turn the auto wipers off, it seems to turn back on again when I engage autopilot. Is this by design? Is there a way to have autopilot on and auto wipers off?

That's by design. (Although I seem to recall a few months ago, Autopilot complained that it couldn't be engaged until wipers were set to auto. I might be remembering incorrectly, though; or Tesla may have changed this in a software update.) Autopilot works by cameras just behind the glass, so it's as affected as we humans by the distortions caused by rain, and so requires the windshield wipers to be running in rain. Presumably the rear- and side-facing cameras aren't as impacted as are the front-facing cameras.