What a neat feature. I was driving on the freeway and it started to sprinkle and the wipers came on and "swished" a couple of times. When the rain fell harder, the wipers ran faster. Of course, this is how you would expect them to work, but I was skeptical...They worked flawlessly and it was very nice not to have to fiddle with the wiper speed while driving on the highway. Yay Lexus!

 

Definitely one of the nicer features of the LS430 - the auto wipers work great. Another lesser recognized feature is how quiet the wipers are. Mine are absolutely silent when they run, no squeaks, drubbing noise, etc - never had a car run as silent as these wipers run in 40 years of driving.

 

I thought they were quiet because the blades were new. That's nice to know they will stay quiet. I live in the desert, so I'm not exactly an expert on windshield wipers. It rains - the blades are shot - we buy new blades - it doesn't rain again until the wipers are shot etc.

 

Interesting........... I live here in the desert as well and while they don't get used for a long time, when they do and have to go on high speed both of my LS's clunk loudly when wiping. Since both cars do it, I thought it was sop. Do your wipers do the same on high speed?

 

My '05 is pretty good, I don't mind running the wipers on high when needed. My '98 was terrible, hated to run the wipers on any speed but low.

 

Smoothness is more on wiper than mechanism, although bad mechanism will cause noise. The auto wipers are great until one day on a dark tunnel you drive and then a spark of light at the right angle triggers the wiper and you're like "what the?!?!"

 

The feature I really like is the washer cycle. Hit the washers and get three swipes and about six seconds later you get an additional swipe to clear the drops off.....great idea

 

I haven't tried the washer cycle.

I agree with Alex that the blades are what causes noise. I think the blades get dried out and stiff from the sun (UV?). I can't remember that my ls400 was noisy.

 

They should not clunk when on high speed. I would guess that someone replaced the arms and they are not set correctly at the seated position, causing them to go down too far and clunk when they hit.