Are your autolights not working either? The autolights work off the same sensor electronics BUT are independant of of the rain sensor and having the autolights activated / deactivated will NOT impact on the operation of the auto wipers. The autowipers can not be bypased, so if hey are faulty, you will not have intermittent wipe, but other speeds (including the rear wiper working when reverse is selected and the single wipe when turning the rotary switch on the stalk) should work as normal. Your problem does sound pretty much the same as what I had, but it might be worth making a few checks first (sorry if this post is a bit long!)....

1, Check that the sensor is making good contact with the screen. The easiest way to check without dismantling anything would be to check on the outside of the screen in the area where the sensor would be fitted (the area just above the rear view mirror). This area should be COMPLETELY black (no pockets of air bubbles etc, EXCEPT a teardrop shape that should be visible). The sensor is attached to the screen with a gel pad - if this is not fitted flush to the screen, the rain sensor will not work. If you can see a complete circle, then the gel pad is missing. This is normally the case when the widscreen has been replaced and the sensor is put back, but without the gel.

2, If 1 above checks out ok, then the next thing to look out for is any warnings on the dash. When you select the intermittent setting, the display will show "Autowiper Fault" if there is a fault present. If this message is present, you sensor is either faulty, or the 3amp fuse in the glove box is blown. The message will NOT appear if the sensor is simply not attached properly to the screen, or is completely missing (at least in my case). If you do not get a warning message, then all the electrics should be ok. I've assumed you know how to activate the autowipers? The stalk needs to be in position 1 (intermittent) with the engine running, and then moved to 2 and back to 1 again in quick succession - one extra wipe will signify its activated and another way to check is to then put the car in reverse and the rear wiper will also now wipe the screen.

3, I managed to get my autowipers to work by adding 2 layers of gel pad (doubled-up). Normally, one layer is sufficient, but with aftermarket screens, the curvature must be slightly different or something as one layer of gel pad did not make any contact with the screen in my case. A lot of people have substituted KY Gel for the gel pad, (believe it or not!) but whilst this may work, it could get inside the electrical part of the sensor and cause further headaches (mine started showing a fault, so I cleaned it all off, washed the sensor, dried it out and hoped for the best - I think I was lucky that it still worked after this, you might not be and the sensor costs quite a bit!

4, I had the additional problem of the autolights not working. I thoughts the stalk was faulty so I replaced the rotary unit to no avail. Initialy, I thought that once I got the autowipers to work, then the lights would work too (seeing as they both run off the same sensor), but I was wrong. This led me to believe that the autolights had been deactivated from the UCH. My car has had a replacement screen earlier in its life, and when the sensor wasn't fitted correctly with the gel, this probably threw up a fault on the dash. Rather than fixing the fault, the last owner must have decided to have the lights deactivated. I found a garage with Renault Clip who was able confirm my suspicions and was able to activate the autolights (and fix a few other setting that were wrong), and they now work as well.

Hope this helps somewhat and gives you a few ideas to check / consider.

 

Thanks TazzyK. I'll do all the checks and see what, if anything happens and report back.

Cheers.

 

Ok. Here are the results to my test. I've not checked the UCH yet but will do at the weekend and post my findings on the other thread.

Warnings on dash - None
Auto Lights Activated - No warnings and if I place a card over the sensor, the lights do come on.

Engine on, flick Int Wipe to pos'n 2 then back to 1 - Spray droplets of water onto the screen over sensor - Nothing happens.

Engine on, select reverse rear wiper does not activate.

I have a couple of pics here of the sensor/gel pad. they look a bit iffy to me. Any thoughts?

Remember, I still have to inspect the UCH at the weekend so we'll see if that has anything to do with it.

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Ok, that looks like the gel is missing, otherwise you'd have to look hard to tell the difference between the sensor itself and the surrounding black area. Only the teardrop area should be visible

You will need to take the sensor off to confirm that though. If you do need tobuy the gel pads, you can get them from ebay. Like I said before though, if your windscreen is an aftermarket one (i.e. doesn't have 'Renault' printed on it anywhere), you may need two gel pads doubled up to get the rain sensor to work. You can also buy the liquid gel which seems good, but again I had problems with that as there's not enough liquid in there to form the gel that would make contact with the screen (again, this is probably because mine is an aftermarket screen).

Still can't understand why the rear wiper isn't activated though. My rear wiper use to work with the reverse gear selected even when the autowipers didn't. Try the 1-2-1 process a bit slower? Make sure you get that extra swipe that signifies the system is activated.

EDIT: Just remembered your other post - that could be why the rear wiper isn't working....

 

I'll get hold of a couple of Gel Pads and fit them once they arrive. We'll see what happens then.

Cheers.

 

New Gel Pad fitted and after spraying a little water onto the screen, the intermittent wipe activated. Now, all I need is it to rain and I'll check it again on the road to see if everything works as it should. No doubt, it'll rain very soon!

Phew, one electrical problem solved i hope.

Thanks guys for the advice.

What next???????