My mother has a 1996 (or 97 depening upon who you ask) Caravan. The windshield wipers have stopped working. The steering column switch does not work in any position (low, high, int) but the wipers will still sweep once when the windshield washer is engaged. Clearly the motor to the wiper is OK.

My mother spoke with a mechanic who basically said it would cost a lot of money and involved problems in the wiring harness. I'm planning to take a look a the think when she visits this weekend. I've seen post discussing the wiper switch and the Body Control Module.

Before I dig into this thing deeply, are there any classic problems and symptoms that the Caravans are known for? Surley, this would be the best place to start.

Omero

 

Welcome to the site. I will move this thread to the Caravan section,
FF

 

Welcome to DF
First i would have said,was ck the fuse's.The problem could be the multi-function switch. If you can find a known good switch and plug it in and if it works. If it does, you fix it, If not. It could be the motor,bcm or wiring.

 

OK. My mother arrived from Maine. The mechanic's report on her vehicle states, "CHECKED BASIC POWER AND GROUND TO WIPER MOTOR OR CHECKED POWER TO MULTI FUNCTIOJN SWITCH AND FUSE BOX ALL OK CHECKED FOR POWER FROM FUSE BOX TO BODY CONTROL MODULE HAS POWER IN BUT NO INTERNAL HAS AN INTERNAL SHORT. WILL NEED REPLACEMENT WE ARE ALSO LOOKING TO A USED BCM. TECH NOTES WHEN HITTING WASHER THE WIPERS WILL WIPE 3 TIMES SO THIS MAY GET HER BY." I take this to mean she needs a new BCM. I'm going to try hot wiring around the BCM to the relay and installing a toggle switch to turn the wipers on. Will see how this goes Saturday. Found a great resource at http://www.dodge.com/bodybuilder/2006/rs/rsmo.pdf , full wiring diagrams for free, apparently from Dodge :-)

 

I had a 98 that would cycle one time and one time only when you changed from off to on. The circuit I think works on a ground seek inside the motor. there is a ring and a contact that was bad. I removed wipers and cowl then bent the tabs up on the motor cover. There was a contact (which rotated with the motor) and a metal ring that the contact road on. I flipped the disk/ring over ( which gave it a new contact) and it work for another 50k until I sold with 280k.

Good luck!
Vince

 

I dug into my Mother's car Saturday morning. I confirmed what the dealer had discovered, however there was no way to find, install and test a used BCM on Saturday of Memorial weekend. I went to plan B, hot wire the wipers. Initially, I used a hot lead of the wiper relay and tied it to a plug that went to the cigarette lighter. (I went through the firewall at the speedometer cable.) This worked but disabled the wiper/washer, which was still OK. I revised my plan tying the lead to the negative side of the wiper relay and changing the lighter plug lead to go to ground. Much better. If I had had more time and a three way switch, I could have taken two wires, one to the on-off relay and one to the high-low relay and, still using the ground side to the relay, had a switch for on and off as well as low and high speed. The intermitten wipers do not work, of course, but my mother does not drive that much any more and we saved a lot on not having to replace the BCM.

 

Great Job! Now keep you eye out for a cheap BCM. If you run across one great, if not no big.
Vince