my wipers work fine but occasionally they stop in the middle of the windshield and about 30 seconds later they start working again any idea whats going on?


Moms & Dads talk to your kids,before its too late,tell them to say no to aluminum wings.

Either the wiper motor is starting to die out, or the wiper tranny is going.

Persoanlly, id go with the motor. Go to a junk yard, get them cheap there.

Always nice to find the question you want to ask on this site has already been asked - about half a year ago and still no answer.

Any one have anything a little more comprehensive?

(Second like post with no answer.)

This problem doesn't happen all the time right??..but lasts for 30seconds. Well there'n not much involved, you have the wiper switch/the wiring/the wiper assembly. if when this happens try and note the driving conditions..meaning did you just go over a bump, is it humid. If so then it could be something simple as a loose connector. The wiper motor/ the wiper linkage/ wiper module are all one unit. If I was in your siutaion, I'd first check to see if i have a good suppliy of power to the wiper module/making sure all wires and connections are good and not corroded. Your either loosing power to the module or the wiper assembly is on it's way out the door.

Once the wiper stays stuck in the middle of the windshield it will not go down and stay down unless I push it. It now makes a grinding noise and gets stuck coming back up the windshield.

Well your best bet would be to remove the arms and cowl cover. Visually look at the operation of the wiper assembly to get an idea of what could of happened. I know that in 99 ish they had a newer design made of the wiper assembly. The old assembly used to lower to the bottom of the windscreen..pause, then lift up on the stoppers that are on the cowl cover. The newer version deleted all that pause and lift onto the stoppers...with the newer model the wipers just stay parked at the bottom of the windscreen like any other car does.
I remember the old version had a plastic pulley with a cable circling it..try and see which verson you might have...either way, weither you have the old version or not..you gotta take off the cowl cover and diagnose what you see wrong visually with the assembly.

I contacted an older gentleman from this site who is a retired mechanic. He suggested modifying the screw at the very bottom of the motor. It connects output shaft from the motor assembly to the wiper arm cam. I checked that out and it was worn (there were teeth on the bottom and they had chewed off any resistance). I replaced this Torx bolt with a regular head bolt with washers to set the head up high enough that I could get some torque on it. I tightened the bolt and marked it, when I reassembled and ran I still had the same problem. Interestingly enough the wiper would go down from where it stopped at the mid top of its swing, get stuck at the bottom, make grinding sounds, and you had to move it with your hand to get it going. When I went to switch it off, it would make an entire sweep, up and down without stopping or grinding and stop at the top of my windshield. When I took it apart again, the bolt head had not moved from its mark. I figure the problem must have been electronic in nature. I ran out of time to fully finish examining this problem, went to the wreckers, and purchased an entire assembly with arms for $35.
I will still try to spend some time trying to figure out what happened so I will know better for next time, because I don't feel like I learned anything here.
Interestingly enough I replaced the '96 Cavalier version with a unit from a 2003 Sunfire.