It's been raining here for over a week, and I drive on dirt (now muddy) roads to get to my horse barn every day. I took advantage of the car wash at a local gas station last fill-up to at least remove the week's deposit of mud. I've not used this wash before, and Rain-X was part of the deal, followed by "clearcoat protectant." The windshield was pretty streaky when I drove out, and it a finally cleared up after the wipers ran in the rain for a while.

Then the wipers went crazy. On the automatic setting the blades go faster and faster without stopping, similar to the high setting. Then they appear to chatter and stick briefly, so I turn them off. The rain isn't heavy enough to need a wiper sweep more than every 5 seconds or so to maintain visibility.

Could the chemicals have affected the rain sensor and also the blades somehow.? I haven't had a chance to clean the winshield by hand because of the continued rain and the LX not having a garage space right now.

 

The rain sensor is on the inside of the truck, just to the right center of the rear view mirror. As a temporary fix, simply snap off the plastic cover, unplug the connector, and the wipers will work normally...but without the rain sensor. You can pick up a new sensor from a Lexus or Toyota dealer...same sensor is used on the Land Cruiser.

Rain-X has nothing to do with your issue.

hth

 

Another possibility could be there was some dirt sticked on the windshield at rain sensor area, which made sensor reacts with false information. the sensor works in principle of light reflection. Try to clean up the area and see if wipe became normal. If not, there might be just a defect sensor.

 

 

We had a short break in the rain this morning. I gave the windshield a good cleaning with windex first and then alcohol. The car wash magic potion had left a big greasy opaque smear over the area of the sensor, and the wipers hadn't cleaned it away. It's probably time for new wiper inserts; anyone have a recommendation of a brand? The rain sensing feature and sensitivity control both work fine now.

If that had not worked, I was ready to buy a replacement rain sensing tape (about $20) and try that. The sensor was listed at various on line sellers for $200-$300.

 

We had our rain sensor replaced by the Lexus dealer a couple of months ago under Lexus EXTENDED warranty. It just stopped working. But the wipers still worked manually. Zero deductible/copay. The "bill" was $5XX.00 as I recall.