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TBH, I hate auto wipers and have always believed them to be a tech solution looking for a problem. Never once have I been in rainy weather and thought "gee, wh

TBH, I hate auto wipers and have always believed them to be a tech solution looking for a problem. Never once have I been in rainy weather and thought "gee, what should I do?". I currently have a car with auto wipers (I'm not sure but I think they use the "standard" infrared sensor to detect rain) and I find them worse than manual, intermittent wipers in every way. I think the biggest problem is that the wipers tend to only go on when water is flowing down the windshield. But we get a lot of "misty" rain where I live, where the small drops will stick in place for some time. So my windshield will become covered with drops and difficult to see through before the wipers turn on, and since the car doesn't let me control the speed for intermittent wipers manually (there is just "high" and "low") I find myself manually hitting the wiper button every ten seconds or so. I know this may seem like "Old man yells at cloud" (literally), but it's just a huge pet peeve of mine when the lower tech solution works great only to be replaced by something more complicated that does the job worse.

ryukoposting 2y ago
> the car doesn't let me control the speed for intermittent wipers manually What's the manufacturer? I'm in the market for a new car, and this would be an instant deal-breaker.
thorncorona 2y ago
This just sounds like you bought a crappy car. There are great implementations of auto wipers available in the wild.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Exactly. This is one of those cases of someone using an extremely crappy implementation of a new technology, and then claiming that all implementations must therefore suck. My last car (a low-end Mazda, now about 10 years old) had excellent auto-wipers; I never had a complaint about them. The controls were simple, the sensitivity could be easily adjusted, they were great. I never wanted to switch back to manual wipers.
lathiat 2y ago
By contrast my 2007 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X has automatic wipers that are just magic and other than making them slightly more or less sensitive once-off (which you can do using the dial on the wiper stalk) it responds perfectly, adjusting the speed up and down with changing rain intensity in perfect harmony with what I would do myself. I never find myself wanting. That's nearly 20 years old at this point. 2018 Subaru Outback, same thing.
- spookie 2y ago
  Great cars! :)
ranger207 2y ago
Yeah I don't get the point of autowipers. My car is too old to have them, and whenvever I drive someone else's car I just have to pray that there's a way to bypass the automation because there's about a 50% chance whatever car I'm driving the wipers just won't work. It's an interesting case of UI/UX because adding the autowipers often makes things more complicated than not because instead of manipulating the wipers directly I instead have to manipulate the automation to manipulate the wipers
- vel0city 2y ago
  In almost every car with auto wipers I've driven it's just been another wiper selection. Off, auto, intermittent, low, high.
vel0city 2y ago
So with auto wipers, sometimes you need to manually turn on the wipers. With manual wipers, you always need to manually turn on the wipers. I don't get how the auto wipers are worse. It's not like having auto wipers means you no longer have manual wipers. Other than maybe a Tesla where they took away the stalks, but just about every car I've had with auto wipers still had regular stalks with pretty regular wiper controls. Just one speed is also auto, so you can leave it there instead of off. And in the end I'll leave it on auto instead of off, and the majority of the time these days I don't even have to think about it. These days, they seem to mostly just work for most of the precipitation I experience. Not always, but most of the time. The first car I had with auto wipers was kind of like your experience. It had to really be coming down to activate. That was a 2012 model year. My 2017 model year car is a good bit better in that kind of misty environment. My 2021 car, I pretty much never touch the wipers even if it's just a light mist. The tech has seemingly been a lot better over the years.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  Good point, I think the issue for me is probably more of a lack of the ability to set manual wipers on a continuously variable schedule than just with autowipers specifically. I have no option that's good for the "misty" rain I described beyond hitting the "wipe once" button on the stalk every ten seconds.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    Yeah, it would be good if all the wipers on auto would repurpose the interval time adjustment as a sensitivity adjustment for the auto wipers when in auto mode. Some cars seem to be able to have adjustable sensitivity in this way, some can only change it deep in settings (not good on the fly), and most seem to be fixed sensitivity.
    - aaronmdjones 2y ago
      My car (2012 Vauxhall Astra J Hatchback) has 5 front windscreen wiper modes (once, off, interval controlled, medium interval, short interval), controlled by the position of the lever (with fully down being once, which is also momentary, and then proceeding upward in the order above). It also has a dial on it to adjust the interval when using the interval controlled option. I don't get to control how fast the wipers move in any mode, only the interval between them moving; on the highest setting, the wipers also move a lot faster, as I believe this lever position bypasses the BCM and runs the motors directly. When it's raining I drive on interval controlled position 3 most of the time, with medium interval in heavier rain and I've only used short interval once. Interval controlled position with the dial on maximum is the same as medium interval position, and the dial on minimum uses the rain sensor. The same lever also controls the windscreen washers (pull toward you for cleaning the front windscreen, push away for the rear), which also puts the corresponding wipers on medium interval for 5 seconds automatically, and finally has a 3-position button on the far end to control the rear wipers (off, long interval, short interval). I like this system. You can adjust every aspect of it with a finger and thumb without ever taking your eyes off the road. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/southwestvauxhallspares-image-drive/Part/2015/May/1b7166b3-2692-42a9-86fc-0bd7e41c00eb_112332.jpg https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/southwestvauxhallspares-i...
SoftTalker 2y ago
I hate everything automatic on my car. Rain sensing wipers activate in dry weather, and then not when it's raining. Climate control does what it wants, I freeze or sweat or have fog on the windshield because it's not directing any air there. Automatic transmission hunts up and down on a hilly road. I want a car with manual transmission, manual wipers, manual climate control settings, and manual radio. Unfortunately they are not sold unless you buy one that's 30 years old.
ec109685 2y ago
Accidentally left auto wipers on at the car wash. Never enabled them again.

ryukoposting 2y ago

> the car doesn't let me control the speed for intermittent wipers manually What's the manufacturer? I'm in the market for a new car, and this would be an instant deal-breaker.

thorncorona 2y ago

This just sounds like you bought a crappy car. There are great implementations of auto wipers available in the wild.

shiroiushi 2y ago
Exactly. This is one of those cases of someone using an extremely crappy implementation of a new technology, and then claiming that all implementations must therefore suck. My last car (a low-end Mazda, now about 10 years old) had excellent auto-wipers; I never had a complaint about them. The controls were simple, the sensitivity could be easily adjusted, they were great. I never wanted to switch back to manual wipers.

lathiat 2y ago

By contrast my 2007 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X has automatic wipers that are just magic and other than making them slightly more or less sensitive once-off (which you can do using the dial on the wiper stalk) it responds perfectly, adjusting the speed up and down with changing rain intensity in perfect harmony with what I would do myself. I never find myself wanting. That's nearly 20 years old at this point. 2018 Subaru Outback, same thing.

spookie 2y ago
Great cars! :)

ranger207 2y ago

Yeah I don't get the point of autowipers. My car is too old to have them, and whenvever I drive someone else's car I just have to pray that there's a way to bypass the automation because there's about a 50% chance whatever car I'm driving the wipers just won't work. It's an interesting case of UI/UX because adding the autowipers often makes things more complicated than not because instead of manipulating the wipers directly I instead have to manipulate the automation to manipulate the wipers

vel0city 2y ago
In almost every car with auto wipers I've driven it's just been another wiper selection. Off, auto, intermittent, low, high.

vel0city 2y ago

So with auto wipers, sometimes you need to manually turn on the wipers. With manual wipers, you always need to manually turn on the wipers. I don't get how the auto wipers are worse. It's not like having auto wipers means you no longer have manual wipers. Other than maybe a Tesla where they took away the stalks, but just about every car I've had with auto wipers still had regular stalks with pretty regular wiper controls. Just one speed is also auto, so you can leave it there instead of off. And in the end I'll leave it on auto instead of off, and the majority of the time these days I don't even have to think about it. These days, they seem to mostly just work for most of the precipitation I experience. Not always, but most of the time. The first car I had with auto wipers was kind of like your experience. It had to really be coming down to activate. That was a 2012 model year. My 2017 model year car is a good bit better in that kind of misty environment. My 2021 car, I pretty much never touch the wipers even if it's just a light mist. The tech has seemingly been a lot better over the years.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
Good point, I think the issue for me is probably more of a lack of the ability to set manual wipers on a continuously variable schedule than just with autowipers specifically. I have no option that's good for the "misty" rain I described beyond hitting the "wipe once" button on the stalk every ten seconds.
- vel0city 2y ago
  Yeah, it would be good if all the wipers on auto would repurpose the interval time adjustment as a sensitivity adjustment for the auto wipers when in auto mode. Some cars seem to be able to have adjustable sensitivity in this way, some can only change it deep in settings (not good on the fly), and most seem to be fixed sensitivity.
  - aaronmdjones 2y ago
    My car (2012 Vauxhall Astra J Hatchback) has 5 front windscreen wiper modes (once, off, interval controlled, medium interval, short interval), controlled by the position of the lever (with fully down being once, which is also momentary, and then proceeding upward in the order above). It also has a dial on it to adjust the interval when using the interval controlled option. I don't get to control how fast the wipers move in any mode, only the interval between them moving; on the highest setting, the wipers also move a lot faster, as I believe this lever position bypasses the BCM and runs the motors directly. When it's raining I drive on interval controlled position 3 most of the time, with medium interval in heavier rain and I've only used short interval once. Interval controlled position with the dial on maximum is the same as medium interval position, and the dial on minimum uses the rain sensor. The same lever also controls the windscreen washers (pull toward you for cleaning the front windscreen, push away for the rear), which also puts the corresponding wipers on medium interval for 5 seconds automatically, and finally has a 3-position button on the far end to control the rear wipers (off, long interval, short interval). I like this system. You can adjust every aspect of it with a finger and thumb without ever taking your eyes off the road. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/southwestvauxhallspares-image-drive/Part/2015/May/1b7166b3-2692-42a9-86fc-0bd7e41c00eb_112332.jpg https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/southwestvauxhallspares-i...

SoftTalker 2y ago

I hate everything automatic on my car. Rain sensing wipers activate in dry weather, and then not when it's raining. Climate control does what it wants, I freeze or sweat or have fog on the windshield because it's not directing any air there. Automatic transmission hunts up and down on a hilly road. I want a car with manual transmission, manual wipers, manual climate control settings, and manual radio. Unfortunately they are not sold unless you buy one that's 30 years old.

ec109685 2y ago

Accidentally left auto wipers on at the car wash. Never enabled them again.