Sensitivity of “auto” wipers

[OliverM3]

There’s a recall? What do you mean

No recall. They probably just mean that they are not up to the task on auto sometimes and should be recalled and fixed. A simple software fix with a sensitivity option would probably be all they need. That way people could adjust the sensitivity like every other car made today with auto wipers.
With mine some days they work fantastic and other times with a light mist they wont fire until I can barely see anything in front of me.

 

[HighPotential]

Finally rained in SoCal. Ok, Cal. A lot. Auto wiper is pretty bad. They must have had a student engineer do the code. Manual is fine, but its manual. Come on guys.

 

[dflowerz]

I have auto wipers on a 2013 Lexus RX450h, 2017 Porsche 911, and now this 2022 Model Y, and they all work the same......not good enough! My theory is that the sensitivity is affected by the brightness of the sky. I use auto wipers on the Tesla sometimes but lately have been using voice command to change the speed. Avoids having to mess with the touch screen as much.

 

[thesmokingman]

Finally rained in SoCal. Ok, Cal. A lot. Auto wiper is pretty bad. They must have had a student engineer do the code. Manual is fine, but its manual. Come on guys.

I noticed last night it started out pretty good, but then at some point it just went haywire went full speed during light misting. Back to manual mode.

 

[Volleyballmom]

I have auto wipers on a 2013 Lexus RX450h, 2017 Porsche 911, and now this 2022 Model Y, and they all work the same......not good enough! My theory is that the sensitivity is affected by the brightness of the sky. I use auto wipers on the Tesla sometimes but lately have been using voice command to change the speed. Avoids having to mess with the touch screen as much.

Hmm... interesting to know that it's not just on Tesla vehicles. Sounds like it's more of a technology issue.

 

[Sango2]

If they had an option to limit the max speed of the wipers on auto, that would be good; also if they could a minimum limit as well.

Most of time when I driven it so far, the speed it operates at is fine but it is those off cases when it goes to max speed unnecessarily because of what it thinks is too much rain (which it is not) such that I manually take control of the speed temporarily.

 

[rwiegand]

I have auto wipers on a 2013 Lexus RX450h, 2017 Porsche 911, and now this 2022 Model Y, and they all work the same......not good enough! My theory is that the sensitivity is affected by the brightness of the sky. I use auto wipers on the Tesla sometimes but lately have been using voice command to change the speed. Avoids having to mess with the touch screen as much.

But there's no way to set a low speed by screen, voice or anything else. I want it to wipe every 30-40 seconds in light mist, there's no setting I know of to do that without having to manually push the button every time. My 25 year old truck has more readily controllable wipers than the Tesla.

The rain sensing wipers on my last vehicles (BMW and Mini) worked acceptably, if not great, and had adjustable sensitivity that let you tweak it.

I blame many of the shortfalls in my car on having all the engineers living in places where it seldom rains and never snows. It's a completely fabulous car on clear, dry, warm days. (Oh, well, and a religious fervor about designing things to work someday in some future full self driving vehicle rather than for today's reality.)

 

[TriniB]

For me it works pretty well when there is some light reflection off the windshield, either from streetlights or other cars headlights. At night when there are no lights or cars on a dark road to reflect off the water drops, it thinks all is well as the water builds up on the windshield.

 

[HighPotential]

I mean this is an easy one to fix with a little bit of revised code and some simple added features (setting our own interval time, setting max auto speed, etc).

 

[804son]

Mine seem to function pretty well when there's a good constant rain. However, as many have said misting that slowly covers the windshield, doesn't seem to very well. I don't think we will ever see a manual sensitivity adjustment. As tesla always assumes they can automate everything.

 

[Calliope]

But there's no way to set a low speed by screen, voice or anything else. I want it to wipe every 30-40 seconds in light mist, there's no setting I know of to do that without having to manually push the button every time. My 25 year old truck has more readily controllable wipers than the Tesla.

The rain sensing wipers on my last vehicles (BMW and Mini) worked acceptably, if not great, and had adjustable sensitivity that let you tweak it.

I blame many of the shortfalls in my car on having all the engineers living in places where it seldom rains and never snows. It's a completely fabulous car on clear, dry, warm days. (Oh, well, and a religious fervor about designing things to work someday in some future full self driving vehicle rather than for today's reality.)

I can change the speed on screen, though you may not like the speed of their 1, 2 3, or 4 speed options. When I click the button on the left stalk, the options come up on the screen. Again, it's a stupid thing to have to use the touch screen while driving, but it works - it could probably be done by voice too, but I haven't tried that.

 

[rwiegand]

I can change the speed on screen, though you may not like the speed of their 1, 2 3, or 4 speed options. When I click the button on the left stalk, the options come up on the screen. Again, it's a stupid thing to have to use the touch screen while driving, but it works - it could probably be done by voice too, but I haven't tried that.

Sure, but the slowest setting is way too fast most of the time.

 

[yogi799]

I found the Rain-sensing wipers in my BMW's worked very well. Never an issue.
I wasn't even aware that Tesla had 'auto wipers', which I GUESS means rain sensing wipers. My Tesla, with intermittant wipers, but not rain-sensing, reminds me a lot of my mid-80's Honda wipers. Whatever speed I pick is the speed they stay at, whether it's raining or not. Mine have never adjusted in any way to how much rain is falling, nor turned themselves off if the rain stopped.

Same here. My old BMW 535 (from 2010) had fantastic rain sensing wipers. Very good at detecting and you could even adjust 3-step sensitivity of detection.

Tesla about made me livid with either no action at all OR running like crazy with absolutely clean windshield.

HAS THERE BEEN a resolution for this issue ? Can we open a service ticket? My M3 was delivered Nov 2022 and the issue is horrible. Help

 

[VictorDK]

Just adding to this thread here.... I have a very similar issue with the auto wipers when there's a light drizzle. Otherwise they are ok-ish during the day. But the biggest issue (and most dangerous imo) is that at night when there's very limited public lighting the auto wipers work very, very badly. I need to click the button on the left stalk so i can see where I'm going or switch to level 2-3 so the wipers work in manual mode. Really disappointing for such a simple thing other manufacturers fixed a long time ago.

 

[yogi799]

Yup, i am also beginning to think Elon and his claims tesla is a software company is one big bullshit. Auto Wipers worked great on a "regular" car that didn't claim to be a software god 11 years ago, my bmw.

That and removal of front and rear proximity sensors which one day will make me hit something... insane. I've had "beepers" to alert me for the last 10 years and now... 60k car and i pray to god i don't hit something when backing out.

 

[L_Mont]

BMW and other car companies are using an IR sensor to detect rain on the windshield. Tesla is unique, they use the camera to detect rain in the windshield.
The problem, the camera sensor is immediately next to the windshield. It cannot focus on the rain drop. A bug hitting just in front of the lens will trigger the auto wiper.

 

[rickybobbee]

Hmm... interesting to know that it's not just on Tesla vehicles. Sounds like it's more of a technology issue.

the auto wipers on my bmw worked perfect.........and that's the only thing that was any good with my bmw

 

[jabloomf1230]

BMW and other car companies are using an IR sensor to detect rain on the windshield. Tesla is unique, they use the camera to detect rain in the windshield.
The problem, the camera sensor is immediately next to the windshield. It cannot focus on the rain drop. A bug hitting just in front of the lens will trigger the auto wiper.

I agree that using an IR source and sensor pair to measure light scattering from precipitation is a better option than the Tesla system. However, I don't believe that your description of how the Tesla system works is accurate. The Tesla system uses an algorithm that compares adjacent frames received from the front camera. If the camera produces a "blurry" frame, the wipers activate until a "clear" frame is received. One can see that this system should work as least as good as the IR scattering approach. However, the digital logic that Tesla uses has apparently not been refined to match the analog IR system.

 

[woolymammoth17]

BMW and other car companies are using an IR sensor to detect rain on the windshield. Tesla is unique, they use the camera to detect rain in the windshield.
The problem, the camera sensor is immediately next to the windshield. It cannot focus on the rain drop. A bug hitting just in front of the lens will trigger the auto wiper.

Sounds like Tesla's dream of dumping every sensor (USS, radar, IR, etc.) other than cameras is the cause of almost every one of their issues. Elon saving those pennies again.

 

[B3stswat]

I think for me they work well about 85% of the time. The times that they don't work is when there is actually no rain present and they are just simply on. I can turn it off but in order for me to use Autopilot, the automatic windshield wipers need to be on. I have to choose between no wipers or no autopilot when that occurs, quite annoying.