Suddenly, my windshield wipers do not retract all the way down when turned off. They only retract to only the low-position-while-on, and won't go any further. I tried helping the wipers to retract all the way but they won't budge. However, I can tell that the motor is still "trying" to retract them down because I can tell the motor is drawing high current. Eventually they don't work until after a minute or two then they will work again. I pulled the 30A fuse to prevent the motor from burning out.

I park under a tree everyday and get TONS of debris all over the area of the wipers. I just washed most of it all out on Friday, but more debris fell there yesterday.

I read this post, and it seems I should take the wiper cowl apart to clean out any debris. But I wouldn't think that tree debris alone would cause the wipers to sort of "jam" in that low position.

Any other ideas?

(97 CV)
I took apart the top part of the wiper "housing" over the wiper motor head and connecting rods, and there was an enormous amount of debris I was able to clean out:


Unfortunately, this did not solve my problem; when the wipers are turned off, they still park in the intermittent-down position, not the full off position. Meanwhile the wiper motor/mechanism continues to try to pull the wipers all the way down, the lights in the car dim a bit indicating high current drain, but for some reason the wiper motor "head" mechanism clicks once but is jammed internally and won't pull the wipers back. I pulled the wiper rods (linkage) off and the motor head remains "jammed". It seems the linkage is supposed to pull back toward the driver's side of the car in order to fully retract/park the wiper blades; it is not pulling back as it seems that it should:

It seems that when the wipers are turned off, the wiper mechanism should pull the "head" (circled in green) to the bottom right corner of the picture as indicated by the red arrows, so that the wipers can fully retract, but that is not happening for an unknown reason. I have to pull the wiper fuse out to stop the current-drain.

Am I right in my assumption that the "head" is suppose to pull to the bottom right in order to retract the blades fully? Is this indicative of needing a new wiper motor? I tried spraying some oil in there but it made no difference. I'm looking at a Cardone remanufactured motor at Autozone for $58 + core + tax (lifetime warranty).

This BOK article-"'92-'02 Wiper tray removal" was rare to find, and may prove to be very useful for me or others who read this thread so that is why I have just referenced it.

OK, for those of you that like videos, I have a couple for you. But don't get your hopes up; we're only talking about windshield wipers here!:

Wiper Motor Head Moving Wipers (MPG format)

Wiper Motor Head Moving - Wiper Linkage Disconnected (MPG format)

I have a similar problem at my house... there's a Honey Locust tree on the village parkway directly in front of my house; this tree has gazillions of small leaves (the size of your pinky fingernail) and little sticks holding the leaves. Late in the summer, both the leaves and the sticks fall, and blanket the yard, and especially whichever car or truck is parked in the driveway. I hate that tree!
Consequently, the Merc and the Mustang share the garage, while the poor Ranger deals with the leaf and stick problems. Even so, a few times per year, I have to open up the Merc's cowl area and evict a bunch of tree shyt like CarMon has, albeit not as bad.

Someone ought to design a cowl that's leaf-proof.

I am pleased to announce that I have solve the problem without having to replace the motor or take much apart!

I purchased a replacement motor with the intentions of replacing mine. I ended up studying the replacement motor. I figured out how the parking mechanism works. It is very ingenious but very simple at the same time. I figured out that to park the wipers, the motor is simply reversed which engages a simple "clutch" mechanism to allow the "head" to pull back and subsequently pull the wipers down to fully parked position.

I figured out that the spring loaded pin (as part of the clutch mechanism) on my car's wiper motor wasn't pushing in at the time the motor reverses, causing the motor to "jam" in reverse, draw high current, and not park the wipers.

The solution: I removed the plastic cap on the motor assembly head, I pushed in the springloaded pin, and greased the heck out of the depression where the pin fits, as well as the entire inside of the clutch mechanism before replacing the cap.

Here you will see that I have packed the clutch mechanism cavity with grease. Also you will see where the spring loaded pin exist as I have marked it in green:


You must then replace the plastic cap to "seal" the grease in:


Wipe away the excess grease the pushed out as a result of fully depressing the cap in:



Videos:
Proper Operation Of Wiper Head (Wiper Linkage Not Attached) MPG format)

Proper Operation Of Wiper Head (Wiper Linkage Attached) (MPG format)

I hope this information helps others when it comes to dealing with windshield wiper parking issues.

CarMon, you da Mon!!

Same problem, same fix... Thanks a bunch!!!

Mine was just bad if not worse. I don't think it was ever cleaned.

Same thing happened to me awhile back, I greased the spot and was pushing grease into the spring loaded pin and the spring popped out the back! Anyways I just ended up replacing the whole thing.

Reviving a dead thread to say thanks - I had to do this today. Now my wipers park as intended.

The pictures were especially helpful for re-assembly.

Reviving an old thread again...

My problem is slightly different. When I shut the wipers off, they simply stay wherever they are. They just stop moving immediately, they don't even go down to the "low-position-while-on".

I did recently clean out the cowl area and wiper tray, but there was very little debris in there. This new issue just started last night.

UPDATE

Just went out to do some troubleshooting, and the wipers are working properly again.

I hate working on cars...

I wish I could disable that feature. I hate the delay of the wipers having to move up and then back down again, especially if you only need to activate one swipe for a mist or something. Would rather there was no park feature like on the 03+ cars.

I thought about swapping the entire cowl and wiper motor with a junkyard unit but then I never did.

RF, as in your wipers not parking, I believe that indicates that there is a problem in the motor, as it is always supposed to sense that the wipers are up and then lower them after it stops receiving power from the multi-function switch.

The wiper motor still works but not the sensors. You could try cleaning out the wind latch mechanism too, and greasing it.

My Focus and Edge both have relays that control the parking of the wipers. My Focus, the wipers would stay where they were when turned off..found out about the relay, replaced it, and they parked properly.

I'm not sure if Panthers are equipped the same way, as I've never used the wipers on my car...it's never been in the rain or snow.

Panthers have a wiper module with a few relays that control the running functions. I've opened mine up on a small expedition to figure out some operations. There is a relay inside the module that controls the parking function.