[PacMan]

Hi All! I have a 2018 Atlas SEL 4Motion for 2 months now. Regarding the rain sensing wipers, they seem to rarely swipe. Granted I have driven mostly in light rain recently, but still you needed the wipers to swipe every so many seconds (every car passing me has the wipers on) and these usually never swipe at all. The only time they came on for me was when it was really pouring. I am sure I have them on and I set the sensitivity to the highest (the largest water drop symbol on the adjuster, but I also tried the smallest too). Honestly, I wouldn't care at all if this 'enhancement' worked if VW let you just revert to a time-based delay (eg, 3 seconds, 5 seconds, etc.) instead of a rain-based sensing delay. But, it seems like that is not possible. It is rain-sensing, low, or high and low and high are often too fast and annoying so you end up manually pressing the 1 swipe button every so often instead. I asked the dealer about this and they brushed it off saying it depends on speed and other things, etc. At this point, I just put RainX on the windshield to get by, but I still feel like this feature (that I now hate) is either malfunctioning or a piece of you-know-what engineering. They put all these safety features in this car, but having a clear windshield is the equivalent of having a roof over you head!

Curious to hear from others. Thanks in advance!

 

[KarstGeo]

Mine works fine and is v. sensitive. I have mine set at the lowest sensitivity. Have you looked in the infotainment car menu under the wipers to see if you have it activated?

 

[Simeon]

The sensor for this system is in the base of the rear-view mirror, so if that's being obstructed in any way that could be the issue. It works based upon the amount of light that is being reflected off the windshield.

 

[PacMan]

Thanks. Yes, I have the rain sensing wipers activated in the car menu. Like I said, they do come on, but only with torrential rain.

Also, I don't have anything obscuring the sensor as far as I know. I am assuming the sensor faces outward from the window, correct? I have an EZ Pass device on the inside of the window, but I don't see how that can be causing this.

The only other person I can find with a similar issue is at this link but it was a 2018 Tiguan.

https://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?8885954-UPDATE-2018-Tiguan-SEL-Premium-Rain-Sensing-Wipers-Not-Working

Hope I don't have to make as many trips as this guy, but I will share his story with the dealer.

 

[Nick1979]

Hi there,
My one week old Atlas was driven in a light drizzle. I needed a wipe every 5-6 seconds so I could see. Never happened. The rain sensing option was on, I played with the sensitivity, but never, not once it wiped for me. This was awful and so disappointing. It’s like I don’t have an intermittent option at all! I wonder what happens when it’s snowing! I don’t know what to do at this point. Have you found a solution?

 

[PacMan]

Took it to the dealer who was somehow able to fix them in the same day. See image attached here of what they did. The wipers work flawlessly now. I agree, when the rain sensing doesn't work right, it is really annoying! Good luck!

 

[Nick1979]

Took it to the dealer who was somehow able to fix them in the same day. See image attached here of what they did. The wipers work flawlessly now. I agree, when the rain sensing doesn't work right, it is really annoying! Good luck!

Good to know you’ve got this fixed. Gives me hope that my issue (if similar) could be resolved as well. I drove in hard rain today. The wipers did not wipe. Only once, and they started after a large amount of water came down the front windshield upon hard breaking. It was pouring rain all the time, but nothing. Called VW dealer and next week they will look into this.

 

[Kamron]

At least there is a solution for the problem and owners wont be waiting around for months for a proper fix. It seems like several owners are reporting the same issue, so I'm wondering if there was a software fault from factory.

 

[Nick1979]

Just came back from the dealer. It was a software issue - they needed to preprogram the software in the rain sensing module (or something like that) It was done in an hour. Happy so far!

 

[flyingeagle]

I have the same problem with my 2018 Atlas Highline. The rain sensing wiper never start unless I spray water heavily on it. I will go to dealer tomorrow.

 

[SuperJoe64]

I generally don't like rain sensing wipers because my experience with them has been sub par on a 2016 Honda Civic. Thus, in anticipation of upcoming rain tomorrow, and knowing that we've yet to use the wipers on our SEL Premium 4Motion, I dug into the manual along with experimentation on this issue.

I've found that if you turn automatic rain sensing off in the Car menu (forget the exact location but it's in the same section as interior lighting, TPMS calibration, that sort of thing) the wipers seem to revert to standard intermittent mode. Now, I've not tried this actually in the rain yet, but in my totally dry garage it seemed that they definitely reverted to standard intermittent, with four selectable delays. Hopefully in tomorrows rain they stay this way and don't revert back to rain sensing. I guess will see.

 

[SuperJoe64]

I generally don't like rain sensing wipers because my experience with them has been sub par on a 2016 Honda Civic. Thus, in anticipation of upcoming rain tomorrow, and knowing that we've yet to use the wipers on our SEL Premium 4Motion, I dug into the manual along with experimentation on this issue.

I've found that if you turn automatic rain sensing off in the Car menu (forget the exact location but it's in the same section as interior lighting, TPMS calibration, that sort of thing) the wipers seem to revert to standard intermittent mode. Now, I've not tried this actually in the rain yet, but in my totally dry garage it seemed that they definitely reverted to standard intermittent, with four selectable delays. Hopefully in tomorrows rain they stay this way and don't revert back to rain sensing. I guess will see.

My wife drove the car today in the rain. According to her, when she had the wipers on intermittent they seemed to be truly intermittent (i.e. the intermittent frequency was not affected by the amount of rain). However, when she had them on the fist “slow” position after intermittent (the next detent, if you will), they ran at a set speed, but when the rain stopped the wipers stopped without input from her. Not really sure if that’s normal or not, but that’s what she observed at this time. It should be noted that I did turn off the rain sensing option in the menus, but that didn’t deter them from shutting off when it stopped raining. As long as they work when it’s actually raining or snowing, then I guess I’m ok with that.?

 

[c2summit]

Took it to the dealer who was somehow able to fix them in the same day. See image attached here of what they did. The wipers work flawlessly now. I agree, when the rain sensing doesn't work right, it is really annoying! Good luck!

Thanks for the work order image. I see the rattle in the door wasn't fixed. I'm guessing it's the same thing I have and have seen on other threads which is actually the left front strut upper bushing/bearing or something to that effect. Seems to be a common problem. I have an appointment to get that looked at as well as my wipers which are way to fast/frequent on the lowest auto setting.