E39 rain sensitive wipers - am I being thick?

[mattman]

Apologies if I'm being thick, but I have the rain sensor on the windscreen and the book says to turn the ignition to on, but not start the engine, knock the wipers up the first positio am n, then start the engine - this should activate the rain sensitive wipers

Tried this a few times and only seem to get intermittent wipers

what am I doing wrong?

[sparks_E39]

I can't make mine work so I assume they are broken, didn't realise it was a feature until I read the hand book.

[SJobson]

If you have normal intermittent on an E39, I thought that you couldn't also have auto wipers, and vice versa? There's no way of swapping between the two AFAIK.

Either auto or intermittent (whichever your car has) will just turn on when you push the wiper stalk up one notch, as long as the ignition is on. If you leave the stalk there after turning the engine off and on again, you'll need to move the stalk or the sensitivity adjustment wheel to start the auto function going again.

[mattman]

no idea - appear to have some sort of sensors embedded in top of the windscreen though

Don't have an adjustment wheel as such, more of a switch within the stalk that goes from 1 wipe to 2x wipes?

[SJobson]

I don't know about the sensor - however, your wiper stalk should look like this (mostly - the pic's from an E46 because it was all I could find). The wheel I was referring to is just that bit in the middle of the stalk which you use to adjust the sensitivity if you have auto wipers, or the delay if you have normal intermittent.

Looking at an E39 owners' manual, the two seem to be mutually exclusive. It also says you can turn on automatic with the ignition in any position above 1; it doesn't say you have to have the engine off. And there's an asterisk to show that it's an option.

[mattman]

thats what I have - so will just have to play with it and see what happens

Thanks!