Rain Sensiing Wipers Are a Joke
 

Fine misting rain tonight in Connecticut. Not enough for the low speed of the wipers to respond. But the glass needed a swipe every 4 or 5 seconds. The Lexus wipers are a joke. They would wait for a full 30 seconds or longer for a swipe or two then stop again. They don't sense a fine droplet covered windshield so I have to do a single swipe or go to slow constant speed. What a disappointment on such an otherwise great car. A third intermittent speed would have been better with less fiddling. I am not alone on this, there have been other threads........

You can adjust the sensitivity of the rain sensing feature. Not sure if it would solve your problem, but it might be worth a try.

That's my primary complaint about my ES. I mutter what you said to myself all the time it rains lightly. An extra setting called SLOW would have been nice. Or an option to use regular intermittent style wiping.

My previous car had Rain Sensors... If you adjust the sensitivity, the respond time is almost instant.. But with the ES, if you adjust the sensitivity, you have to wait almost 30 seconds before it take the effect...

Thanks what I noticed...

On mine, the sensativity works fine and changes the action but it just won't get to a point where it is swiping enough as needed per misting rain conditions. It is always behind the conditions on the glass.

If the rain gets hard enough it can almost keep up, but not quite. Then when the rain gets steady it morps itself into the constant low speed. That final action is correct per the manual and is fine at that point.

I'm amazed of your complaint. Perhaps you'd wish for a real problem. I continue to have no complaints for my 2010 ES 350.

Well that is a silly answer. It is a real problem. The stupid wipers don't work well! Get it? I spent a good part of my career in quality control engineering. I just can't stand it when a company makes a product that doesn't work well. So glad yours are fine, but I would guess you aren't very particular about how things work or haven't had your car in fine misting rain yet.

This whole issue is subjective. What one person considers not working well, is OK with another. I think mine work fine after nearly four years, but can understand if someone else thinks otherwise. It's that way with A LOT of things automotive and otherwise.

Personally, the performance of rain sensing wipers wouldn't be a deal breaker.

It is not subjective to me if the windshield is covered in water droplets and the wipers do nothing for 10 seconds. That is a fact. It is subjective that you may not mind driving with water droplets on the windshield, blurring your vision for 10 seconds. I do mind. The design sucks.

That's what subjective means. Sucks to one person and not to another.:)

Yeah, that isn't a real problem IMO haha.

It is funny though how we are so lucky and grateful to have such nice cars that this is our only complaint. I have never been in a car where the windshield wipers are timed out perfectly with the rain.

For your "Misting" conditions. I suggest putting a few coats of Meguiars Ultimate Quik Wax or RainX on your windshield. When traveling around 40mph, the water will sheet off. I don't even need my wipers most the time.

Sure, subjectively speaking it is a "minor" problem! No problem with that. But they still aren't as good as a regular Toyota system. Lexus got ahead of themselves on this one. Just like BMW with their "idrive" system. Over engineered.

While I understand exactly what you are talking about and yes, I do think this issue needs some work...... it still underscores how well this car is actually made if owners are complaining about slow wipers. Most other chat boards (for other brands) are filled with complaints from owners about the how their car won't start, the electronics keep breaking or their transmission is failing.

Sounds a little anal to me. It's just a piece of metal. Get over it or get rid of it.

GM's wipers on the Chevy Malibu and the Saturn Aura, and others I assume, actually work much better than the ES. They're standard intermittent wipers, but when you have them in the intermittent mode, when you go 50 mph or faster, they increase to the "Low" speed automatically. I wouldn't want my Aura back, but that was a nice feature.

I actually have other complaints: The dash rattles, the engine sounds horrible on cold mornings (common problem) and the paint quality is terrible. The good outweighs the bad though.

For the record, I'm a quality assurance engineer. I like things to work correctly.