# Auto wipers not ready for prime time (Mar. ‘18)



## SoFlaModel3

Tonight was my first extended day/night of driving with rain. 

Now before I tell you why I believe the auto wipers are not ready for prime time, I will preface this with I have never found a car with auto wipers that I liked. Personally I like in frequent swipes and generally find auto wipers to swipe too frequently for my liking. 

I will say the Tesla Model 3 lives up to expectations from past experience with auto wipers. They’re just too frequent in swiping. Now to elaborate as to why they’re really not ready for prime time, it’s because they chatter on the windshield since the glass is dry. 

Switching the wipers off and using the single swipe as necessary or the slowest intermittent swipe speed proved to be a lot more to my liking.


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## AEDennis

SoFlaModel3 said:


> Tonight was my first extended day/night of driving with rain.
> 
> Now before I tell you why I believe the auto wipers are not ready for prime time, I will preface this with I have never found a car with auto wipers that I liked. Personally I like in frequent swipes and generally find auto wipers to swipe too frequently for my liking.
> 
> I will say the Tesla Model 3 lives up to expectations from past experience with auto wipers. They're just too frequent in swiping. Now to elaborate as to why they're really not ready for prime time, it's because they chatter on the windshield since the glass is dry.
> 
> Switching the wipers off and using the single swipe as necessary or the slowest intermittent swipe speed proved to be a lot more to my liking.


Funny...

My experience is opposite... I was just commenting with my wife that the Auto Wipers were a little aggressive but did a great job in the "not so frequent" rain that we experienced in Southern California today... (we took the 3)...

So, YMMV. But I was quite happy with Auto-Wipers... considering this was unavailable when we first picked up our 3 at the end of 2017... And the Firmware upgrade added it a week or so later.


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## John

It's been a while since I had a car with auto-wipers, but I used to really enjoy having them.

Normally when I'm wearing my product designer hat I think settings are a cop-out (more settings = more confusion), but I think this is one of those areas where people have radically different desires and anxieties. Some people want to see and hear the wipers as little as possible, other people hate drops. Might also vary by amount of glare, fog, darkness, whatever. So maybe it would be nice if there were a sensitivity setting for them. 

Maybe.


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## jsmay311

Is the chatter actually caused by the glass being too dry?

Others seem have observed that it's somehow unique to the "auto" setting itself, and not the frequency of the wipes or dryness of the glass:
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/model-3-drive-in-rainy-condition.109654/


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## SoFlaModel3

jsmay311 said:


> Is the chatter actually caused by the glass being too dry?
> 
> Others seem have observed that it's somehow unique to the "auto" setting itself, and not the frequency of the wipes or dryness of the glass:
> https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/model-3-drive-in-rainy-condition.109654/


You know what as I think about it more this 100% right. I can do a single swipe on a barely wet windshield and it's fine. Also manually adjust speeds and it was fine as well. There is something wrong with auto where it chatters. Maybe all hope is not lost there with subsequent update. Bigger issue is probably just my personal preference for less swipes though.


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## garsh

For those who think it swipes too often - did you put some sort of hydrophobic coating on the windshield (ex. Rain-X)? I can drive through a torrential rainstorm on intermittent when using Rain-X. But when I had my windshield replaced, I had to put the wipers on high-speed during a light rainstorm, and it was still very hard to see.


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## SoFlaModel3

garsh said:


> For those who think it swipes too often - did you put some sort of hydrophobic coating on the windshield (ex. Rain-X)? I can drive through a torrential rainstorm on intermittent when using Rain-X. But when I had my windshield replaced, I had to put the wipers on high-speed during a light rainstorm, and it was still very hard to see.


Yes, I use Optimum Opti-Glass Clean & Protect

https://optimumcarcare.com/product/optimum-opti-glass-clean-protect


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## TrevP

garsh said:


> For those who think it swipes too often - did you put some sort of hydrophobic coating on the windshield (ex. Rain-X)? I can drive through a torrential rainstorm on intermittent when using Rain-X. But when I had my windshield replaced, I had to put the wipers on high-speed during a light rainstorm, and it was still very hard to see.


I treated mine with Aquapel and it makes a big difference, rain barely sticks and at speed you almost don't have to use wipers at all.


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## TesLou

I have auto wipers on my 2010 Lexus and they are fantastic - in the rain. My ONLY 2 complaints about them is they tend to stay on the fast setting too long after being on during a torrential downpour. This past Thursday night when driving through Pittsburgh during a blinding snowstorm, they were a little tardy in responding. Rain - good. Snow - not so much. Hoping the Model 3 is able to recognize both.


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## Maevra

Anyone on 2018.4.9 feel like the wipers got worse after this latest update?

Previously I've had no problems with the wipers even when it rained really hard, but after 4.9 it seems they don't swipe as often. I ended up toggling between Manual level 3/4 for the commute home. IMO seems the fastest setting of the wipers on "Auto" is equivalent to Manual level 3; whatever it is, Auto wiper mode was way too slow for the amount of rain today.


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## GDN

SoFlaModel3 said:


> You know what as I think about it more this 100% right. I can do a single swipe on a barely wet windshield and it's fine. Also manually adjust speeds and it was fine as well. There is something wrong with auto where it chatters. Maybe all hope is not lost there with subsequent update. Bigger issue is probably just my personal preference for less swipes though.


I don't recall which forum, but there is a video someone has posted of this very thing. They only get the chatter when on auto. Didn't matter too much how wet or dry the windshield was, the chatter really only happened when on auto, not with a single wipe of the same amount of water.


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## rareohs

Here in Portland alot of the rain is kind of slow and misty and if anything, I'm finding the auto wipers to be not sensitive enough - a good amount of rain will accumulate before it fires.


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## John Slaby

My wife's BMW X1 has auto wipers and they are terrible, so even with dedicated rain sensors, the tech seems to be flaky at best.


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## Bokonon

+1 for sensor-based auto-wipers being insufficient. My e-Golf has them, and I find that I'm constantly adjusting the sensitivity during anything short of a full downpour. And just as @rareohs observed, they fail at the infamous Miserable Portland Drizzle (which sometimes visits us here in Boston!), as well as with spray from other vehicles traveling at speed.

The net result is that I'm constantly adjusting the sensitivity switch, which is the same switch that controls wiper speed in manual mode. In other words, enabling or disabling auto-wipers makes little difference in how I interact with the car, which is disappointing.

So, the way I look at it, the Model 3 auto-wipers can't be any worse than what I already have... And oh BTW they can improve with OTA software updates!


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## jsmay311

Bokonon said:


> So, the way I look at it, the Model 3 auto-wipers can't be any worse than what I already have...


Except that with the Model 3 you can't adjust the wiper speed from a stalk. You have to do it from the screen, which requires taking your eyes off the road momentarily. That's an important difference.


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## Bokonon

jsmay311 said:


> Except that with the Model 3 you can't adjust the wiper speed from a stalk. You have to do it from the screen, which requires taking your eyes off the road momentarily. That's an important difference.


Agreed, but with two caveats:

1. If I press the the swipe-once button at the end of the stalk, it brings up the wiper menu on the screen, which I suspect I'll learn to adjust by feel, just like I don't need to look down at the physical wiper speed control to know which way I need to flick it. (And even before I get to that point, it only takes a split second to identify the position of the manual speed I want on the screen, so it's not too different from checking the speed or turning on a heated seat.)

2. Tesla is allegedly working on an enhancement to the wiper button that will allow for more fine-grained control without using the screen at all. (My guess: double-press to advance to the next wiper mode, triple press for maximum.)


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## MelindaV

rareohs said:


> Here in Portland alot of the rain is kind of slow and misty and if anything, I'm finding the auto wipers to be not sensitive enough - a good amount of rain will accumulate before it fires.


I think it is really personal preference... the rental I had a couple weeks ago I thought did very well in typical Portland 'rain', if anything I would have preferred it to wait a little longer.


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## Insaneoctane

Seems simple that the auto wipers need a "sensitivity" setting that allows you to bias the speed of the wipers from what the system thinks to what you want. It is crazy to assume that windshield wiper speed is one-size-fits-all. Most smartphones have auto brightness but still offer the user a bias to their liking. I sure wish Tesla had a much larger software development team!


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## SoFlaModel3

Insaneoctane said:


> Seems simple that the auto wipers need a "sensitivity" setting that allows you to bias the speed of the wipers from what the system thinks to what you want. It is crazy to assume that windshield wiper speed is one-size-fits-all. Most smartphones have auto brightness but still offer the user a bias to their liking. I sure wish Tesla had a much larger software development team!


Well much like phone screen brightness this is actually the same thing ... accept auto or manually adjust. There are 4 set speeds, manual swipe, and auto.

I guess I've come to acceptance that there will literally never be a car that has the exact swipe frequency that I want and I'm ok with that


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## Asnpcwiz

This is the epitome of first world problems. We are arguing about how much faster or slower we would like the auto wipers to wipe.

I will add, I would like it slower


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## TesLou

Resurrecting this thread because I’m having the “chattering” wipers problem. While out for an unrelated problem, the ranger made an adjustment to both wiper arms but when I drove the car at lunch today in a light rain, they were still bouncing across the windshield. Doesn’t matter how light or heavy the rain is. Has anyone found a resolve for this?


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## garsh

Have you tried cleaning both the wiper blades and the windshield?


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## SoFlaModel3

TesLou said:


> Resurrecting this thread because I'm having the "chattering" wipers problem. While out for an unrelated problem, the ranger made an adjustment to both wiper arms but when I drove the car at lunch today in a light rain, they were still bouncing across the windshield. Doesn't matter how light or heavy the rain is. Has anyone found a resolve for this?


My resolution was to turn off auto wipers and never use them again


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## TesLou

garsh said:


> Have you tried cleaning both the wiper blades and the windshield?


Yep. Also, I haven't treated the windshield with any Rain-X type product.


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## John Slaby

Went out today with a slight drizzle and the auto-wipers worked perfectly. As the day wore on the rain became steadily harder, and the wipers continued to do their job. Quite honestly, I was surprised because I've heard so many criticisms of them, but for me, at least, they have been great.


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## TesLou

John Slaby said:


> Went out today with a slight drizzle and the auto-wipers worked perfectly. As the day wore on the rain became steadily harder, and the wipers continued to do their job. Quite honestly, I was surprised because I've heard so many criticisms of them, but for me, at least, they have been great.


They seem to have a mind of their own. Last night after sunset during a steady rain, they wouldn't work for me at all unless I passed under a bright streetlight. Today, during a brief rainstorm, they worked. Not as aggressively as I would like, but they worked.


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## MrMatt

Just sent this to Tesla Service:

I believe you took a step BACKWARD with your most recent M3 software update with regards to the windshield wipers. The change, you'll recall, was to make the wiper control show as a "disappearing card" on the screen, instead of a solid item that i can swipe to, and KEEP on the screen. When I have the wipers on manual, i want the card to STAY there so i can adjust the speed, not disappear and make me press a button to find it again EACH time i want to change the speed. That seems WAY more important to me than, say, a button to see my rear-view camera (useless) or a button to see my battery status (also useless, esp while driving). In fact, i'd argue that, when the wipers are on, either cause i put them on OR the car automatically put them on, the WIPER card is the most important card to me at that time. Please consider optimizing that section of the screen to make our car better and safer in inclement weather. ​
Thoughts? I work in SW and the UI is just silly. I really hope they fix this; it seems simple to me.....


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## garsh

Wipers seems like one area where I would much prefer a third stalk be added.


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## xnappo

The wipers are the *only* thing annoying me about my M3.

A tip - pushing the stalk button puts the display on the screen and that is easier for me to remember that.

Would like it if when the wiper card is on the screen, the left scroll wheel left/right controlled the speed.

xnappo


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## M3MS

I discovered the chatter issue with the wiper in auto-mode when it finally rained in April, about a month after I took delivery. The tech at the service center initially assumed the wiper blades were defective and replaced them, which made no difference. It turned out the problem was listed in Tesla's bug database as a known software issue, and was automatically fixed with a software update. It hasn't happened since. I assume from the last date of this thread that it's no longer a problem in your cars as well, as we all receive the same software updates?

You may already know this: in case this is new information: the rain-sensing wiper logic is driven by a neural network working off the cameras ie. it is not traditional hard-wired rain-sensor electronics. So over time, it should work much better than traditional rain-sensing wipers.


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## SoFlaModel3

M3MS said:


> I discovered the chatter issue with the wiper in auto-mode when it finally rained in April, about a month after I took delivery. The tech at the service center initially assumed the wiper blades were defective and replaced them, which made no difference. It turned out the problem was listed in Tesla's bug database as a known software issue, and was automatically fixed with a software update. It hasn't happened since. I assume from the last date of this thread that it's no longer a problem in your cars as well, as we all receive the same software updates?
> 
> You may already know this: in case this is new information: the rain-sensing wiper logic is driven by a neural network working off the cameras ie. it is not traditional hard-wired rain-sensor electronics. So over time, it should work much better than traditional rain-sensing wipers.


Yeah it's definitely not the wiper blades as they only chatter in Auto and not any of the other 4 settings + single swipe.

As far them getting "better", that's subjective in my opinion. While I keep testing them with each update just to see, I always disable them and likely will never use them. This is my personal opinion, but frankly they just swipe too frequently for my liking. If they had multiple levels of auto then maybe I'd be inclined to actually use them.


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## John Slaby

SoFlaModel3 said:


> Yeah it's definitely not the wiper blades as they only chatter in Auto and not any of the other 4 settings + single swipe.
> 
> As far them getting "better", that's subjective in my opinion. While I keep testing them with each update just to see, I always disable them and likely will never use them. This is my personal opinion, but frankly they just swipe too frequently for my liking. If they had multiple levels of auto then maybe I'd be inclined to actually use them.


Funny, I have been very happy with the auto wipers. They have worked well in almost every circumstance. The one time they weren't up to par was in the early evening when it was in that funny state between light and dark. Otherwise they've been great. Only occasional chatter, but not enough to bug me. They are, hands down, way better than the auto-wipers on my wife's BMW.


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## scaots

SoFlaModel3 said:


> Yeah it's definitely not the wiper blades as they only chatter in Auto and not any of the other 4 settings + single swipe.
> 
> As far them getting "better", that's subjective in my opinion. While I keep testing them with each update just to see, I always disable them and likely will never use them. This is my personal opinion, but frankly they just swipe too frequently for my liking. If they had multiple levels of auto then maybe I'd be inclined to actually use them.





John Slaby said:


> Funny, I have been very happy with the auto wipers. They have worked well in almost every circumstance. The one time they weren't up to par was in the early evening when it was in that funny state between light and dark. Otherwise they've been great. Only occasional chatter, but not enough to bug me. They are, hands down, way better than the auto-wipers on my wife's BMW.


Interesting different takes on the auto wipers. Mine do not wipe frequently enough, especially at night. Although, even though I did get 18.21.9 early, I still have not had a good chance to use wipers since then, so hoping it is better. And mine had a little chatter near the upper limit of wipe seemingly on driver side. Also should add that I feel that I use my wipers sparingly (at least in daylight) as wife would have them on way faster than I normally do.


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## SoFlaModel3

scaots said:


> Interesting different takes on the auto wipers. Mine do not wipe frequently enough, especially at night. Although, even though I did get 18.21.9 early, I still have not had a good chance to use wipers since then, so hoping it is better. And mine had a little chatter near the upper limit of wipe seemingly on driver side. Also should add that I feel that I use my wipers sparingly (at least in daylight) as wife would have them on way faster than I normally do.


See in my case even if they're good they're still not good. It's purely my personal preference for very infrequent swipes. This is probably the kind of feature that will be hard to make everyone happy with.

My vote would be for at least 2 auto settings (relaxed and aggressive)


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## MrMatt

SoFlaModel3 said:


> This is probably the kind of feature that will be hard to make everyone happy with.


*perfect* use of software!! Let ppl set their preference for how 'wet' the windshield needs to be on auto.


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## tim-sutherland

I drove 4 hours through a rain storm last week, and since my hydrophobic coating had worn off, the auto wipers worked almost perfectly the whole trip. Sometimes slightly delayed to change the speed, but they were good enough for me and I ran Autopilot pretty much the whole trip which made for the least stressful hard rain driving I've ever done, even though I was being extremely aware babysitting Autopilot due to the rain.


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## SoFlaModel3

I decided to give autowipers another chance with the introduction of 24.1 and while I realize it’s quite likely nothing changed (nothing mentioned in the release notes, though that doesn’t necessarily mean anything), I think I’ve come around. The convenience of autowipers is pretty nice. It swipes a little more than I want, but it sure beats manually adjusting all the time. 

Consider me fully automated!


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## SoFlaModel3

10 days later one last follow up. The auto wipers are definitely too fast for my liking but it’s a fair trade to be automated.


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## SoFlaModel3

Well call me impressed, not bad auto wipers, not bad!


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1020417772487168000


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## SoFlaModel3

My experience seems to change here. At slower wiping speeds (auto only) they wipers chatter badly.

Firmware 2018.24.8


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## evannole

SoFlaModel3,

My experience is the same as yours. The wipers chatter quite a bit at slower speeds while on Auto. However, if in the very next pass, they decide they need to run faster, the faster swipes are smooth as silk. It's only the slower and intermittent wipes that are plagued with the chattering. Despite that, I think that they work pretty well. I view the chattering as a mild annoyance... One that I would surely like to be fixed in an update, but also one that I can live with.


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## SoFlaModel3

Low speed chatter is almost entirely gone in 2018.28.1!! It seems to chatter just a little before finishing the swipe at the bottom of the windshield, which is not bad at all!

EDIT: I partly take this back. It’s definitely better, but it still happens when the wipers transition from fast to slow and it happens mid-swipe instead of waiting for the start of the next swipe.


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## GDN

Truly amazing they can cause and then fix the wiper chatter with software. It has to be the way they cycle the motor or the current to the motor during the swipe. Been reported by many that it doesn't happen when they are turned on, but only on auto. Quite amazing. Just like controlling the mic/speakers for bluetooth and correcting the phone echo.

They are just about to get the majority of these bugs worked out. Sure glad it is time to upgrade to version 9. We can start all over.


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## aronth5

I realize this post isn't related to autopilot but since the posts before me were related to the wipers I figured I'd bring the wipers up again. I love the car but the auto sensing wipers are terrible. Sometimes they work sometime they don't and the behavior on at least my car appears to be totally random. I end up using the manual controls most of the time especially when it rains hard. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps it's a hardware problem? Does anybody's auto sensing wipers work consistently from one update to the next?
I'd also like to see the manual wiper card stay open when I switch from auto to manual as I often want to adjust the wiper speed and the way it works now means I have to mess with the display more then I should.


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## SoFlaModel3

EDH said:


> I realize this post isn't related to autopilot but since the posts before me were related to the wipers I figured I'd bring the wipers up again. I love the car but the auto sensing wipers are terrible. Sometimes they work sometime they don't and the behavior on at least my car appears to be totally random. I end up using the manual controls most of the time especially when it rains hard. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps it's a hardware problem? Does anybody's auto sensing wipers work consistently from one update to the next?
> I'd also like to see the manual wiper card stay open when I switch from auto to manual as I often want to adjust the wiper speed and the way it works now means I have to mess with the display more then I should.


Yesterday I praised the improved auto wipers and today I was back to they're terrible. However, when I went to manual mode on the slowest interval setting that chattered as well. To confirm it wasn't my glass, single swipe worked perfect and faster speed also perfect.

This is frustrating!


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## Jason F

SoFlaModel3 said:


> My experience seems to change here. At slower wiping speeds (auto only) they wipers chatter badly.
> 
> Firmware 2018.24.8


I agree. On autowipe when they go at the slowest speed they chatter. Doesn't matter how much you clean them or the window. Either it is just too slow or some weird step thing is going on in software. This should easily be correctable. No reason to wipe slow, just change the frequency of the wipe but keep the speed.


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## PHd410

EDH said:


> I realize this post isn't related to autopilot but since the posts before me were related to the wipers I figured I'd bring the wipers up again. I love the car but the auto sensing wipers are terrible. Sometimes they work sometime they don't and the behavior on at least my car appears to be totally random. I end up using the manual controls most of the time especially when it rains hard. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps it's a hardware problem? Does anybody's auto sensing wipers work consistently from one update to the next?
> I'd also like to see the manual wiper card stay open when I switch from auto to manual as I often want to adjust the wiper speed and the way it works now means I have to mess with the display more then I should.


I too wish the wiper card would 'stay' as that is most important to have those controls readily available during imperfect driving conditions. I've found the auto setting to not be wiping as frequent as I desire.
#keepthewipercard


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## Tesla Newbie

Tonight was the first time out in the rain and the wipers were relatively useless. We had the chattering issues described in this thread, but at auto and every manually-selected speed. Not only was this annoying, it was dangerous; the rain was heavy and the wipers failed to keep the windshield clear.

It seems that conversation about this has stopped in recent weeks. Does that mean that an update corrected the problem (we’re on 2018.32.2 which is only a week or so out of the box) or have you all found some other solution? Are we convinced this is a software issue?


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## SoFlaModel3

Tesla Newbie said:


> Tonight was the first time out in the rain and the wipers were relatively useless. We had the chattering issues described in this thread, but at auto and every manually-selected speed. Not only was this annoying, it was dangerous; the rain was heavy and the wipers failed to keep the windshield clear.
> 
> It seems that conversation about this has stopped in recent weeks. Does that mean that an update corrected the problem (we're on 2018.32.2 which is only a week or so out of the box) or have you all found some other solution? Are we convinced this is a software issue?


I still have the chatter in 32.3.

As for your other concerns, I've never had an issue with it not swiping fast enough. In fact the opposite, I'm bothered by how fast it swipes opposite.


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## Tesla Newbie

SoFlaModel3 said:


> I still have the chatter in 32.3.
> 
> As for your other concerns, I've never had an issue with it not swiping fast enough. In fact the opposite, I'm bothered by how fast it swipes opposite.


My post wasn't clear. "The wipers failed to keep the windshield clear" because the chattering forced us to change the speed frequently, so it was never at the appropriate speed for the amount of rain. I don't have an opinion on the actual swipe speed because we were too annoyed by the chattering to notice anything else.

#Lovingmy3regardless


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## Stream3

Tesla Newbie said:


> Tonight was the first time out in the rain and the wipers were relatively useless. We had the chattering issues described in this thread, but at auto and every manually-selected speed. Not only was this annoying, it was dangerous; the rain was heavy and the wipers failed to keep the windshield clear.
> 
> It seems that conversation about this has stopped in recent weeks. Does that mean that an update corrected the problem (we're on 2018.32.2 which is only a week or so out of the box) or have you all found some other solution? Are we convinced this is a software issue?


During a trip yesterday we got intermittent light to heavy rain. Only used auto setting. I'm on 32.3 and did experience some chatter. Worse at slow wipe speed. But overall I was fine with leaving it in auto as it did the job quite well.


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## Bokonon

This afternoon, I took a much longer route home (~30 miles), and, thanks to a cold front moving in, the drive unexpectedly turned into a great test of how the auto-wiper setting responds to a variety of rainy conditions.

Background: I am on firmware 32.5, my car was delivered 6 days ago, and this was its first encounter with rain. I have not applied any kind of hydrophobic treatment to the windshield, but I did notice *some* beading of the water and a light fog-like film forming on the exterior of the windshield... so maybe the delivery center put something on when they prepped the car?

Anyway, to make a long story short: auto-wipers performed perfectly in everything from light drizzle to tropical downpour, and seamlessly handled the [sometimes wild] fluctuations in intensity. Coming from a VW e-Golf with a dedicated rain sensor that never seemed to get it exactly right, and which was slow to react to changes in intensity, it was sooooo relaxing to not have to fuss with the wipers at all during the entire drive... not even when a car in the adjacent lane blasted through six inches of standing water and blinded my windshield.

As for "chatter", I didn't experience anything like what some of you have described above, but I did notice that the wipers would make two distinct, high-pitched squeaks at the end of a cycle whenever the rain transitioned from very heavy to light. Nothing really annoying, just an odd kind of wiper-squeak I haven't heard before in 20+ years of driving (with plenty of squeaky wipers).

I'll be curious to see whether the auto-wiper experience I had today remains the same over time, or whether it's just a result of having a new car and set of wiper blades.


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## SoFlaModel3

Bokonon said:


> This afternoon, I took a much longer route home (~30 miles), and, thanks to a cold front moving in, the drive unexpectedly turned into a great test of how the auto-wiper setting responds to a variety of rainy conditions.
> 
> Background: I am on firmware 32.5, my car was delivered 6 days ago, and this was its first encounter with rain. I have not applied any kind of hydrophobic treatment to the windshield, but I did notice *some* beading of the water and a light fog-like film forming on the exterior of the windshield... so maybe the delivery center put something on when they prepped the car?
> 
> Anyway, to make a long story short: auto-wipers performed perfectly in everything from light drizzle to tropical downpour, and seamlessly handled the [sometimes wild] fluctuations in intensity. Coming from a VW e-Golf with a dedicated rain sensor that never seemed to get it exactly right, and which was slow to react to changes in intensity, it was sooooo relaxing to not have to fuss with the wipers at all during the entire drive... not even when a car in the adjacent lane blasted through six inches of standing water and blinded my windshield.
> 
> As for "chatter", I didn't experience anything like what some of you have described above, but I did notice that the wipers would make two distinct, high-pitched squeaks at the end of a cycle whenever the rain transitioned from very heavy to light. Nothing really annoying, just an odd kind of wiper-squeak I haven't heard before in 20+ years of driving (with plenty of squeaky wipers).
> 
> I'll be curious to see whether the auto-wiper experience I had today remains the same over time, or whether it's just a result of having a new car and set of wiper blades.


The chatter is not the result of the blades themselves or the rubber aging, it's all programming.

If I do a single swipe or any of the 4 user controlled speeds it swipes perfectly. On auto it does great until it gets to a slower speed and then the chatter comes on.


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## Will M

SoFlaModel3 said:


> The chatter is not the result of the blades themselves or the rubber aging, it's all programming.
> 
> If I do a single swipe or any of the 4 user controlled speeds it swipes perfectly. On auto it does great until it gets to a slower speed and then the chatter comes on.


This has mostly been my experience as well. Delivered 7/17, on 32.3 software. My only counterpoint would be that the situation did improve (but not resolve) when the mobile service guy cleaned both the blades and the glass. He said oils on those surfaces from manufacturing can interfere. I still experience squeaks and chattering at the end of some return strokes, usually at slower speeds.


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## garsh

Will M said:


> He said oils on those surfaces from manufacturing can interfere.


And that usually is the reason for wiper blade chatter on most vehicles. But the Model 3 also exhibits (or used to exhibit) chattering on the auto setting, while a regular non-auto setting would be fine.


----------



## Enginerd

garsh said:


> But the Model 3 also exhibits (or used to exhibit) chattering on the auto setting, while a regular non-auto setting would be fine.


I noticed that as well. My guess is that the auto setting includes a torque sensor in the control implementation. Not sure exactly why that would be a good idea, except that it could probably identify situations where the wiper is being dragged across a dry windshield.


----------



## Tesla Newbie

SoFlaModel3 said:


> . . . If I do a single swipe or any of the 4 user controlled speeds it swipes perfectly. On auto it does great until it gets to a slower speed and then the chatter comes on.


That probably helps explain why other posters did not share my experience with the wipers. The day this happened, the rain was all over the place ... light one moment and then a crazy downpour the next (welcome to Houston). The chattering was obvious but inconsistent, probably as a function of the speed. I've been waiting for another storm to check out the theory, but the weather gods aren't cooperating. It just rains for four minutes after the car is clean to annoy me.


----------



## SoFlaModel3

Tesla Newbie said:


> That probably helps explain why other posters did not share my experience with the wipers. The day this happened, the rain was all over the place ... light one moment and then a crazy downpour the next (welcome to Houston). The chattering was obvious but inconsistent, probably as a function of the speed. I've been waiting for another storm to check out the theory, but the weather gods aren't cooperating. It just rains for four minutes after the car is clean to annoy me.


Yeah and on that note I had horrible chatter today


----------



## MiloPez

My previous car allowed me to adjust the sensitivity of auto wipe. That car was a 2007 model and 25% the cost.


----------



## kort677

FWIW: I was warned by my sales advisor on my test drive that the auto wipers are not up to par. I haven't had too much experience with it but it is quite simple to push the button on the signal stalk when the auto isn't keeping up.


----------



## changsteer

garsh said:


> And that usually is the reason for wiper blade chatter on most vehicles. But the Model 3 also exhibits (or used to exhibit) chattering on the auto setting, while a regular non-auto setting would be fine.


That's what my wipers behave right now. They chatter when coming down from half way to the bottom on Auto with slower speed. They are fine at any speed when on manual. By the way, I'm on 34.1.


----------



## Vin

Yeah mine are much worse with chatter but better with detecting rain lol. Before 34.1 it was the opposite. It could also be that I have ceramic coating on my glass from a few weeks ago so maybe the oils are starting to build up on the blades. I'll try to clean them soon but I think it's definitely worse since 34.1


----------



## changsteer

After 36.2 update, the chatter is much worse now. I didn't apply anything to my windshield or wash my car. So there are no other factors would cause it to get worse.


----------



## Bernard

SoFlaModel3 said:


> Yesterday I praised the improved auto wipers and today I was back to they're terrible. However, when I went to manual mode on the slowest interval setting that chattered as well. To confirm it wasn't my glass, single swipe worked perfect and faster speed also perfect.
> 
> This is frustrating!


I think it's related to blade speed. When the blades move fast (as in single sweep or fast continuous), I've never seen chatter on any of the five firmwares I've had (21.9, 28.3, 32,2, 34.1, 36,2), but chatter has been very common on slow intermittent and pretty common on slow continuous, as well as on automatic under all those firmwares (32.2 did best of the five). Someone at Tesla seems to have decided that, since they had control over the speed of the blades (evidently not just one of 2-3 choices, but a large range of values), they should run the blades more and more slowly as the rain gets more and more sparse. Not a good idea, as the single swipe demonstrates -- better to run less often, but still at some decent minimum speed.

On the rain detection under auto: it was horrible under 21.9 (unusable); since 32.2 it's decent and continues improving slightly (but would very much benefit from a user-adjustable sensitivity) -- EXCEPT when you get condensing fog, which it seems completely unable to recognize as rain, even if when the windshield is effectively opaque due to uniform beading covering the entire surface.

Off topic for sure, but related: I hope that v9 will come with user-settable sensitivity adjustments for various automatic tasks; in addition to one for auto wiping, I'd like one for auto AC (which simply does not work at all here in Hawaii -- I use manual all the time, set to 72F to keep the cabin at around 80-82F).


----------



## SoFlaModel3

changsteer said:


> After 36.2 update, the chatter is much worse now. I didn't apply anything to my windshield or wash my car. So there are no other factors would cause it to get worse.


Funny because in my limited sample size chatter is basically gone in 36.2.


----------



## SoFlaModel3

changsteer said:


> After 36.2 update, the chatter is much worse now. I didn't apply anything to my windshield or wash my car. So there are no other factors would cause it to get worse.


Funny because in my limited sample size chatter is basically gone in 36.2.


----------



## changsteer

SoFlaModel3 said:


> Funny because in my limited sample size chatter is basically gone in 36.2.


In that case, it's really not consistent then. Even for my own experience, I'm having hard time to find a pattern. Sometimes it only happens with higher speed driving. But sometimes it happens at lower speed local driving, too.


----------



## JWardell

Just went for a spin in the rain to confirm 36.2 did not fix Auto wiper chatter at all for me.
Manual slow intermittent works fine...
I still don't understand what Tesla is trying to do here. Are they trying to slow down the wipe speed? Is it turning off an on a few times mid-wipe? I should hook an oscilloscope up to the wiper motor and drive around in the rain to see what's going on


----------



## garsh

JWardell said:


> I should hook an oscilloscope up to the wiper motor and drive around in the rain to see what's going on


YES YOU SHOULD! 

That would be awesome information to collect. I am completely confounded by this issue. It seems insane that this should be happening.


----------



## Love

Had a crazy storm yesterday right after work that had the rain coming down so hard and fast some roads were overwhelmed. For a while there on two specific roads I was actually concerned for my rear bumper! 

I felt the wipers were excellent! I was very impressed. It seems, at least in my experience, the problem area is when the deluge lets up and rain is still coming down, albeit much lighter. The wipers seem to not register a lighter rain and I end up using the button to make it swipe as visibility is getting reduced a good enough amount it warrants it. 

Overall, I do feel it's been improved and I look forward to more improvements!


----------



## JWardell

garsh said:


> YES YOU SHOULD!
> 
> That would be awesome information to collect. I am completely confounded by this issue. It seems insane that this should be happening.


I have no problem coming up with several explanations to the issue, what confounds me is how it gets unnoticed and into production through several software releases. Unless they really don't get rain in California. 
(considering the factory shipped my car with the trunk open to collect water...)


----------



## Love

JWardell said:


> I have no problem coming up with several explanations to the issue, what confounds me is how it gets unnoticed and into production through several software releases. Unless they really don't get rain in California.
> (considering the factory shipped my car with the trunk open to collect water...)


I see what your problem was @JWardell, you forgot to uncheck this box when you did your config. It's checked by default.


----------



## Rich M

I feel like it takes the auto wipers about 5 minutes of rain to find their rhythm and calibration after it starts raining. They always seem to change their attitude for the better after that point.


----------



## crmatson

Drove to work this morning in a light mist. 
First time using the auto-wipers in my 2-week old car and I thought they were great. 
There was no chatter and the intermittent timing was good.


----------



## sjg98

My first real drive was in the rain, alternating from a mist to medium.
The auto never seemed to get it right, consistently being a bit conservative / leaving the windshield too wet.


----------



## babula

Are people still having issues with this? Mine seem to be working great, it was raining here constantly a couple of weeks back and I had no real issues. My biggest gripe would be the excessive speed sometimes when entering the car, but no real issues while driving.


----------



## SoFlaModel3

babula said:


> Are people still having issues with this? Mine seem to be working great, it was raining here constantly a couple of weeks back and I had no real issues. My biggest gripe would be the excessive speed sometimes when entering the car, but no real issues while driving.


I'm happy with it since the update to 2018.36.2


----------



## scaots

On 36.2. Raining tonight. Lots of mist. Auto wipe intervals seemed better than previous versions, however definitely still have lots of chatter. Mostly on the low speed, but sometimes when they are moving faster also. Hardly at all if manually triggered. Seems to be less chatter when it was less misty and more like drops. I would say it is the wiper blades, except that manual trigger seems to hardly cause it so something is different with the speed and it should be possible to fix it with software. Still might try some new wipers for experiment sake.


----------



## NR4P

I did notice an issue with the auto wipers today. I live in S. Florida, lots of heavy rain this time of year. Auto wipers have worked perfectly since I got the car a few months ago.

Today, not so good.
Driving at about 65 mph, a light rain starts falling. Call it heavy drizzle. But I am going 65 mph. What I noticed is the water rising up the windshield faster than its coming down. In other words, its traveling from the rear edge of the frunk, up the windshield to the roof. Blocking alot of my vision. Auto wipers did not come in.

Once I hit the button on the left stick a few times it finally kicked in.

Preliminary thought. Sensors are looking for falling rain, not rising water/rain. Or a % of rain blockage on the glass.


----------



## Kizzy

I'm on 36.2 (as just about everybody is now). At night in rural areas with no street lights and no passing cars, the auto wipers just do not operate. It's sort of fine as it's generally possible to see through the windshield if there are no external light sources, but it's far from optimal. I may need to bug report this (if I have a cellular connection).


----------



## JustTheTip

36.2 72xxx VIN. I get auto chatter at the top end of the sweep. Every time. Manual activation is mostly better but after awhile that starts to chatter too at the top end.

Been rainy here in Chicago so I've had a chance to test out the auto setting a bit. It's not very consistent at all. Horrible in light misty rain. The windshield just collects the tiny drops and doesn't swipe until you can barely see out the windshield. 

Hoping v9 improves the wipers in general.


----------



## mdfraz

With my last update, 36.2 ac4a215, I had thought the auto wipers got better. But I drove in rain on and off for a couple hundred miles on Saturday and they are not nearly what they should be. Pretty disappointing. I wouldn't have been able to see at all had I not been switching to manual almost every time the rain started up.


----------



## Stream3

I've a had a couple of experiences with the windshield wipers coming on when it's not raining. Happened after putting in Park. They are sweeping in a delay action but you can't turn them off. Both times when I got under way again, they shut off. I always keep them set in Auto mode. Not even sure you can turn them off - looks like Auto mode or Manual and that's it.


----------



## viperd

Has anyone seen improvements with the wipers in V9?


----------



## JWardell

viperd said:


> Has anyone seen improvements with the wipers in V9?


I only had light rain on Tuesday to test with, but they worked very well. Not enough experience to give it a big win just yet, but I am fairly sure it is a significant improvement


----------



## GDN

We've had monsoon like rain in Dallas the last week. I drove two days and would say the wipers were just almost perfect. I've heard one other report that they didn't see any improvement in v9 - will call @plankeye to the thread.

I really only noticed one problem was each time I'd get back in the car the wipers would want to go on high speed for several wipes before settling down to the right speed or needed delay.

I left them on 100% auto though for 2 days and couldn't be happier, none of the chatter across the windshield and almost perfect response for when a wipe was needed, they delivered a wipe.


----------



## SoFlaModel3

viperd said:


> Has anyone seen improvements with the wipers in V9?


V9 caused rain to stop in Florida


----------



## plankeye

Strangely, my wipers have behaved really well this whole last week. They didn't do well right after v9, but they're doing well now. I haven't washed the car in a while, so I wonder if I've built up a coating on the windshield now.

Sorry, but haven't been on the forum much since the "upgrade." I'm kind of struggling with getting used to it. I have to say I don't really like it all that much.


----------



## scaots

On v9 mine chatter as much as always if not more. Seems to get worse the cleaner the window is.

I should have mentioned it at service, but just having ceramic 10 days before, I didn't want them doing anything extra like try to spray it down and use the wipers. So I just bought new wipers. Bosch Icon (since that is what I have always been getting). Found out that the OE style definitely do not fit in the Tesla holders. Some forum had reports of ones at Autozone being different, but where I checked they were same as others. It looks like if you trim the plastic a little might work but gets very close to the rotation point and when I cracked through to that I wasn't going to try them on the car. So I busted open the new wipers and carefully opened the end of the Tesla stock wipers to swap out the blades. Open the end of the Tesla wiper that doesn't slide. That end has a notch in the blade to hold it in place. I had to cut a similar notch in the new blade and slide them in with the end cap. I noticed that the old wipers seemed to stick to the window while the new ones didn't so hoping my woes are over. No rain this week, but maybe on weekend or when I wash it. I will report back whenever I am confident in results. Also if you are going to this trouble, the new blades were a tad shorter than the old, no issue but if going to this trouble might as well buy an extra inch and cut it to the same length.

Additionally FWIW I also drained the blue wiper fluid which just seemed to fog up and streak. I filled (almost a gallon) with rainX 2 in 1 low temp that has always worked great for me to get most stuff off the windows and seems to lubricate the wipers better.


----------



## Raxxla

I'm a recently new owner, and this is the one thing I find I have a problem with. The auto wipers are not consistent in any way. I've driven with full loads of water on my windshield and they would not turn on to wipe. I end up having to turn them on to a setting. Or use the button on the left stalk to have them wipe. Current V9 of the software.


----------



## scaots

scaots said:


> On v9 mine chatter as much as always if not more. Seems to get worse the cleaner the window is.
> 
> I should have mentioned it at service, but just having ceramic 10 days before, I didn't want them doing anything extra like try to spray it down and use the wipers. So I just bought new wipers. Bosch Icon (since that is what I have always been getting). Found out that the OE style definitely do not fit in the Tesla holders. Some forum had reports of ones at Autozone being different, but where I checked they were same as others. It looks like if you trim the plastic a little might work but gets very close to the rotation point and when I cracked through to that I wasn't going to try them on the car. So I busted open the new wipers and carefully opened the end of the Tesla stock wipers to swap out the blades. Open the end of the Tesla wiper that doesn't slide. That end has a notch in the blade to hold it in place. I had to cut a similar notch in the new blade and slide them in with the end cap. I noticed that the old wipers seemed to stick to the window while the new ones didn't so hoping my woes are over. No rain this week, but maybe on weekend or when I wash it. I will report back whenever I am confident in results. Also if you are going to this trouble, the new blades were a tad shorter than the old, no issue but if going to this trouble might as well buy an extra inch and cut it to the same length.
> 
> Additionally FWIW I also drained the blue wiper fluid which just seemed to fog up and streak. I filled (almost a gallon) with rainX 2 in 1 low temp that has always worked great for me to get most stuff off the windows and seems to lubricate the wipers better.
> 
> View attachment 16460
> View attachment 16461


Update:
Finally tried a few miles in the rain today. Fingers still crossed, but seemed to fix the chatter and daytime auto was pretty good at wiping as needed. Plan on being out tonight so will get more test later if still raining. 
Note 1: With the wipers off, I noticed that the new blades slid across the windshield much better. The original blades seemed to stick to the windshield. 
Note 2: Even with new wipers, I notice on low speed that the wipers tend to stutter particularly in certain places in the sweep. The new wipers work smoothly, but definitely something with the motor drive that jitters and probably adds to any chatter issues. They need to simply drop this low speed sweep and just always move the wipers fast. 
Note 3: I am on firmware 2018.39.7, same as previously tested with.


----------



## JWardell

I finally did a good amount of driving in both light and heavy rain yesterday, and can finally report that swiping is now 80-90% improved with 39.7. It's still not perfectly smooth all the time, but the big stuttering is gone and occasionally only has a slight issue. Glad auto wipers are finally usable.


----------



## scaots

They are still lacking in misty conditions in the dark, however otherwise seem to work good enough. Occasionally they go a little crazy and occasionally you need a manual swipe, but no big deal there. Unfortunately the dark misty conditions is not uncommon for me to run into.


----------



## GDN

[mod note: post copied from Firmware 2019.5.3 thread]



FrancoisP said:


> I'd rather have automatic wipers that work properly.


Maybe you could help us understand what doesn't work well with your wipers. I think we can admit the wipers have had problems, mainly with chatter, but mine have worked very very well for probably 4 months now. I would agree that maybe they should wipe just a bit more often than they do when on automatic, but I've had no chatter and they even seem to be working well when it is dark outside. Improvements have been made and I'd take them like they are, but obviously some issues still for some people, I'm just not sure what they are.


----------



## FRC

GDN said:


> they should wipe just a big more often


I have almost given up on the auto wipers(a feature I love if they work correctly). I mostly use manual settings now because the auto settings are almost always one or two setting levels slower than needed to keep up with the rainfall. Might be just my car or the typical rainfall in my area, I don't know. Chatter has never been an issue for me.


----------



## GDN

FRC said:


> I have almost given up on the auto wipers(a feature I love if they work correctly). I mostly use manual settings now because the auto settings are almost always one or two setting levels slower than needed to keep up with the rainfall. Might be just my car or the typical rainfall in my area, I don't know. Chatter has never been an issue for me.


You must just be driving too fast in to the rain  !!! I hear you though as that is my issue, just need a little faster or more often on the wipe.


----------



## Mike

GDN said:


> Maybe you could help us understand what doesn't work well with your wipers. I think we can admit the wipers have had problems, mainly with chatter, but mine have worked very very well for probably 4 months now. I would agree that maybe they should wipe just a bit more often than they do when on automatic, but I've had no chatter and they even seem to be working well when it is dark outside. Improvements have been made and I'd take them like they are, but obviously some issues still for some people, I'm just not sure what they are.


My auto wipers do not work in salt spray, light rain at night or low light conditions.


----------



## Long Ranger

The wipers are by far my number one complaint with the car. Nothing else even comes close.

I wouldn't care so much if they added a reasonable way to control the manual wipers. I just find it infuriating to have to take my eyes off the road and reach for the touchscreen at a time when visibility is really poor. This is the only car I've ever driven where I couldn't turn up the wipers without taking my eyes off the road. 

I generally leave the wipers on auto, and they do a decent job with our usual drizzle. I have to do a few button press swipes, no big deal. But when the rain picks up, I can almost never leave them on auto, and I need to switch to manual speed 3. Performance of the auto wipers in these situations varies and isn't always predictable, but I find it generally varies from "a bit annoying" under wiping to "flat out dangerous I can't see a thing" under wiping.


----------



## MelindaV

GDN said:


> Maybe you could help us understand what doesn't work well with your wipers. I think we can admit the wipers have had problems, mainly with chatter, but mine have worked very very well for probably 4 months now. I would agree that maybe they should wipe just a bit more often than they do when on automatic, but I've had no chatter and they even seem to be working well when it is dark outside. Improvements have been made and I'd take them like they are, but obviously some issues still for some people, I'm just not sure what they are.


the wipers are very much a personal preference I think. For me, I think they wipe too often under most conditions.


----------



## FRC

MelindaV said:


> the wipers are very much a personal preference I think. For me, I think they wipe too often under most conditions.


I'm really beginning to believe that auto wiper speed varies significantly car to car. It is not remotely possible that you could think my car wipes too often @MelindaV . Almost always, the wipe doesn't occur until many seconds after visibility is reduced to near zero.


----------



## Rick Steinwand

Long Ranger said:


> I wouldn't care so much if they added a reasonable way to control the manual wipers. I just find it infuriating to have to take my eyes off the road and reach for the touchscreen at a time when visibility is really poor. This is the only car I've ever driven where I couldn't turn up the wipers without taking my eyes off the road.


How hard is it to tap the end of the left stalk?


----------



## Long Ranger

Rick Steinwand said:


> How hard is it to tap the end of the left stalk?


It's easy once or twice. But pressing it repeatedly every few seconds in steady rain gets a bit old after about the 20th time. I've also tried driving by holding the button in for awhile. At the first detent it continuously wipes like the manual 3 setting. But that gets old too.


----------



## aronth5

Long Ranger said:


> It's easy once or twice. But pressing it repeatedly every few seconds in steady rain gets a bit old after about the 20th time. I've also tried driving by holding the button in for awhile. At the first detent it continuously wipes like the manual 3 setting. But that gets old too.


While they work on fixing the wipers it would be very helpful to change the behavior of the wiper card so it stays displayed for several minutes before going away. 
At least that way it would be easier to use the manual controls without having to repeatedly press the left stalk.


----------



## MelindaV

FRC said:


> I'm really beginning to believe that auto wiper speed varies significantly car to car. It is not remotely possible that you could think my car wipes too often @MelindaV . Almost always, the wipe doesn't occur until many seconds after visibility is reduced to near zero.


when you come out west, we can compare


----------



## Long Ranger

aronth5 said:


> While they work on fixing the wipers it would be very helpful to change the behavior of the wiper card so it stays displayed for several minutes before going away.
> At least that way it would be easier to use the manual controls without having to repeatedly press the left stalk.


Keeping the wiper card displayed would be a good improvement, but I'd really like to see something where you don't need to use the touchscreen at all. You really should be able to get the wipers going at speed 3 or 4 without taking your eyes of the road.

Using a scroll wheel would be great. I know some people have concerns about dual function scroll wheels, but I don't think it would be that confusing. If I had to choose, I'd take wipers over Autopilot or even volume control.

I've seen various proposals for double-clicking the wiper button to change modes. Any of those would be a big help, and seemingly simple to implement.

At a minimum, I wish holding in the wiper button at the first detent for a second would set the wipers to manual 3. As I stated earlier, it already behaves that way for as long as you hold in the button. They just need to latch it in that mode when you release. A quick tap could put it back in auto. It sure seems like a simple, low risk change, with little or no impact on other existing functionality. Being able to easily toggle between auto and manual 3 would be a huge safety/convenience improvement for me. Wiper adjustment would become a reflex action that I don't have to think about anymore.


----------



## airj1012

GDN said:


> Maybe you could help us understand what doesn't work well with your wipers. I think we can admit the wipers have had problems, mainly with chatter, but mine have worked very very well for probably 4 months now. I would agree that maybe they should wipe just a bit more often than they do when on automatic, but I've had no chatter and they even seem to be working well when it is dark outside. Improvements have been made and I'd take them like they are, but obviously some issues still for some people, I'm just not sure what they are.


There are many times when I get in the car and the wipers start going crazy. High speed and many wipes in a row with minimal or no water on the windshield. Also when set to auto, I can hardly see out of the window because there is so much water on the windshield. Its threshold is much higher than mine. I'm surprised autopilot works so well when I can't see out the windshield, granted its cameras are probably better than my eyes. All of this could be preference but I believe auto needs to be a bit more sensitive than it is now.


----------



## GDN

airj1012 said:


> There are many times when I get in the car and the wipers start going crazy. High speed and many wipes in a row with minimal or no water on the windshield. Also when set to auto, I can hardly see out of the window because there is so much water on the windshield. Its threshold is much higher than mine. I'm surprised autopilot works so well when I can't see out the windshield, granted its cameras are probably better than my eyes. All of this could be preference but I believe auto needs to be a bit more sensitive than it is now.


Thanks for clarifying. I'd have to say I'm about in your same boat, but maybe I over look more things. If the windshield is already wet when I get in, I may get a few very fast wipes, it seems crazy, but it does clear the windshield, but I don't let that one bother me. After that I do believe for my needs they are a bit slow on auto. Otherwise I don't have any issues.

The reason I asked for clarification is that wiper issues have changed over time. A year back and for several months the biggest complaint was the chatter/skipping as they moved. I had this issue as well, but it has since cleared up and the operation seems fine, it is just their timing now that personally I'd like to see tweaked. A problem to one may not be to someone else however. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't chatter or some other activity that you believed to be the problem. Thanks.


----------



## ummgood

Here are my thoughts with the auto wipers.

1. If there is road mist from cars in front of me they never seem to activate. My window gets disgusting and they should be wiped but I always press the end of the stalk. I am wondering if the size of the mist is so small that maybe the computer doesn't register them as rain drops but instead a dirty window?
2. My wipers go when there is no rain/wetness at all in the fog. I have had 2 mornings in a row where my wipers are going on a dry window but it has been foggy. I have to turn them off in this circumstance because I don't want them scratching the glass.
3. At night they only seem to function if there is street lighting. In daylight they work well but when it is dark they seldom go as much as I would like.
4. My initial problems with the wipers shuddering in auto mode is completely gone. I am guessing they fixed those since mid last year.
5. When I wash my car I wish there was a way to disable the auto wipers because as soon as I close the door they start up. I usually wash my car at a hand wash place myself and I have to move my car out of the stall before I dry it. I don't want the wipers going and putting streaks on the glass.


----------



## Dave EV

ummgood said:


> 1. If there is road mist from cars in front of me they never seem to activate. My window gets disgusting and they should be wiped but I always press the end of the stalk. I am wondering if the size of the mist is so small that maybe the computer doesn't register them as rain drops but instead a dirty window?


What I have noticed is that with light mist when you are driving, the top portion of the windshield doesn't collect much moisture, presumably because airspeed is higher right there, so the cameras simply don't see much moisture on the windshield.


----------



## MelindaV

Multiple times I've said I feel the autowipers swipe TOO quickly and @FRC suggested maybe there is a distinct difference between different cars
so on the drive home, it was sprinkling and the wipers were swiping about 2x as frequently as I would if controlling them manually and attempted to get a short video showing the sprinkles on the glass.


----------



## Bokonon

MelindaV said:


> on the drive home, it was sprinkling and the wipers were swiping about 2x as frequently as I would if controlling them manually


Wow, my wipers would have swiped *maybe* once during that entire video!


----------



## MelindaV

Bokonon said:


> Wow, my wipers would have swiped *maybe* once during that entire video!


i turned them off after recording that and proceeded to just tap the stalk once a minute or so


----------



## FRC

Definitely much more effective than mine, @MelindaV .


----------



## GDN

MelindaV said:


> Multiple times I've said I feel the autowipers swipe TOO quickly and @FRC suggested maybe there is a distinct difference between different cars
> so on the drive home, it was sprinkling and the wipers were swiping about 2x as frequently as I would if controlling them manually and attempted to get a short video showing the sprinkles on the glass.


I know that videos are very deceiving, but why does it seem that your right hand side (passenger side) wiper barely makes any movement? Mine comes all the way across and wipes in front of the camera. The look from the video just doesn't seem like your wiper came over near that far. Mine also I don't think would have wiped twice in that time frame.


----------



## MelindaV

Bokonon said:


> Wow, my wipers would have swiped *maybe* once during that entire video!





FRC said:


> Definitely much more effective than mine, @MelindaV .


interesting - with this being a camera driven function, you would expect it to be the same across all on the same FW


----------



## MelindaV

GDN said:


> I know that videos are very deceiving, but why does it seem that your right hand side (passenger side) wiper barely makes any movement? Mine comes all the way across and wipes in front of the camera. The look from the video just doesn't seem like your wiper came over near that far. Mine also I don't think would have wiped twice in that time frame.


the passenger side wiper stops at about the middle of where i look thru the windshield, so assume you are just seeing something weird from the video angle (this is from my phone held over the steering wheel, not the dashcam)


----------



## Bokonon

MelindaV said:


> interesting - with this being a camera driven function, you would expect it to be the same across all on the same FW


...if we were all driving in tandem with you on the same road at the same time.


----------



## Long Ranger

MelindaV said:


> interesting - with this being a camera driven function, you would expect it to be the same across all on the same FW


You don't happen to use some kind of hydrophobic coating like RainX or Aquapel do you? It doesn't look like it from what I can see in the video, but I can't tell for sure. That could explain a difference between cars. I've been hesitant to use something like that due to concerns over possible chatter or making the auto wipers even worse.


----------



## garsh

Long Ranger said:


> You don't happen to use some kind of hydrophobic coating like RainX or Aquapel do you? It doesn't look like it from what I can see in the video, but I can't tell for sure.


I got the opposite impression. It looks like the raindrops are beading up really nicely on the windshield.


----------



## MelindaV

Long Ranger said:


> You don't happen to use some kind of hydrophobic coating like RainX or Aquapel do you? It doesn't look like it from what I can see in the video, but I can't tell for sure. That could explain a difference between cars. I've been hesitant to use something like that due to concerns over possible chatter or making the auto wipers even worse.


I do use RainX (have on every car I've driven for many years) and for a day or so directly after it is applied, the wipers can stutter a little if the glass is mostly dry, but after that there is no stutter at all. not sure if it is more to to with the initial slickness of the glass, or residue getting on the rubber, but either way, it is temporary, and even at that, not bad.


----------



## francoisp

GDN said:


> Maybe you could help us understand what doesn't work well with your wipers.


[Edit: with version 2019.8.5 I've noticed a significant improvement. The wipers appear to be more responsive and I find myself not having to constantly activate them.]

My other car is Hyundai Genesis 2012 and the wipers turn on when there is rain and stop when there isn't. Granted sometime I have to adjust the sensitivity but overall that's not something I complain about.

I love everything about the model 3, except the wipers. For example, my car is parked in the garage, the wipers on auto. I put the car in reverse and sometime the wipers start, in the garage. Okay, maybe there is dirt on the sensor? So I wait and after 10 wipes, the wipers are still going. Then I back out of the garage and there's a light rain and guess what, the wipers stop wiping. I wait up to a point where it's fuzzy because of the rain and I have to push the wiper button. I don't know what the issue is but it would be nice if some form of sensitivity adjustment was available.

This morning there was an annoying mist and the wipers would never start on their own, I had to keep pushing the button. Eventually I ended up using the intermittent mode. This problem has been solved already. Like I said with my 2012 Genesis that's never an issue.


----------



## kataleen

Coming from my wife's eGolf I was somewhat surprised to see how Tesla implemented the auto option for the wipers. For some reason they decided that auto option and the set of three timings should be mutually exclusive. I am not sure if that's an oversight on their design team or they simply did not bother making it better.
On the eGolf for example you can have the auto on or off and at the same time use the three timer settings, which in the auto mode translate into how sensitive (often) you want the wipers to react to water. On the lowest setting for timer, if I switch on auto, the wipers will wait until there is a considerable amount of water on the windshield (not a lot) until they wipe and also if I set it to high, it will wipe at the first drops of water.
Anybody else think that this should behave this way for the Tesla? And the beauty, is that it could be changed with a SW update.


----------



## Ed Woodrick

There's supposedly a change due to better tune it with the neural network, but that's been awhile back since mentioned.
But generally, it works well for some people, but not others. My wife thinks that it is not enough, I'm fine, in the same car and the same wipers.


----------



## dannyskim

Auto wipers IMO are the poorest implementation of any feature on my Tesla. Sometimes I'll get into my car from a deep sleep and the auto wipers will just go off for no reason. Windshield is clean, no water on it, I sit and wait to see how it'll go and it just goes.


----------



## FRC

I have complained about auto wiper function since day 1. I am now on 2019.12 and am happy to say that auto wiper speed is vastly improved!!


----------



## lance.bailey

it sounds to me that the problem is defining the threshold for turning on the wipers and that different people have different opinions on that threshold. My sister likes to play a game of "really? not yet?" with her Mini Cooper.

perhaps the solution is to have the auto-1-2-3 changed to everything auto with a sensitivity adjustment instead of a speed setting. so the lowest would be what Auto is today. then you could increase the sensitivity until they are going all the time (currently setting "1" today) and then further adjustment would be faster and faster (currently settings "2" and "3" today).

just a thought.


----------



## kataleen

lance.bailey said:


> it sounds to me that the problem is defining the threshold for turning on the wipers and that different people have different opinions on that threshold. My sister likes to play a game of "really? not yet?" with her Mini Cooper.
> 
> perhaps the solution is to have the auto-1-2-3 changed to everything auto with a sensitivity adjustment instead of a speed setting. so the lowest would be what Auto is today. then you could increase the sensitivity until they are going all the time (currently setting "1" today) and then further adjustment would be faster and faster (currently settings "2" and "3" today).
> 
> just a thought.


As I mentioned in my post above, that's how VW implements it and now see, it appears that not only them but the majority of car manufacturers.


----------



## Kizzy

Since my car is sometimes in the rain with no overhead lighting (the situation in which auto wipers seem to work best), I suggested Tesla use sound to determine heavy rain in rural areas.

My wipers are only too sensitive when the windshield is dusty and my car is parked under an overhead light (ultra high speed wipers, activate!).


----------



## justflie

Since 8.5, wiper speed has been dramatically improved for me. Last rainstorm, the wipers actually performed as I would expect, for the first time since owning the car. I was pleasantly surprised at the improvement. Prior to this, they always seemed about a half beat too slow to keep up with the rate of rainfall.


----------



## JWardell

I have to agree that the wipers are now the smarted I've ever driven with in recent firmware, now that I had some long driving in varying rain conditions this weekend, even at night. What an incredible improvement over just six months ago. Now much better than other cars I've had in the past with auto wipers, and no constant desire to adjust the sensitivity (which kind of defeats the purpose...). Yet again, it takes time, but Tesla figures out a better way to do something.


----------



## Metz123

JWardell said:


> I have to agree that the wipers are now the smarted I've ever driven with in recent firmware, now that I had some long driving in varying rain conditions this weekend, even at night. What an incredible improvement over just six months ago. Now much better than other cars I've had in the past with auto wipers, and no constant desire to adjust the sensitivity (which kind of defeats the purpose...). Yet again, it takes time, but Tesla figures out a better way to do something.


HArrumph...I still get chatter on auto wipe (yes, clean windshield and wipers), still get them not working at night unless there's an overhead light source and still see them randomly fire at ludicrous speed mode for 15 seconds under mild drizzle.


----------



## JWardell

Metz123 said:


> HArrumph...I still get chatter on auto wipe (yes, clean windshield and wipers), still get them not working at night unless there's an overhead light source and still see them randomly fire at ludicrous speed mode for 15 seconds under mild drizzle.


I absolutely had all of those issues, but they were very much fixed in firmware updates around December. What version do you have installed?
There is so much confusion and small pieces missing with each of the 2019 firmwares, I'm very much hoping a widely released new firmware will be released soon.


----------



## Jetstreamsky

I wish you could just pin the wiper menu open when you want, too much faffing about changing rates in wintery weather, even if auto did work well.


----------



## Cycle11111

Jetstreamsky said:


> I wish you could just pin the wiper menu open when you want, too much faffing about changing rates in wintery weather, even if auto did work well.


With 8.5 I find the wipers vastly improved and working well in most conditions - I have driven through three major rain events since getting V8.5 3 weeks ago. For those wanting to change settings quickly - sorry if you know this already - when you hit the stalk button to wipe or wash two things that helped me: 1) if you hold in the button for wipe or wash operation it keeps going 2) when you wipe or wash all the wiper settings appear on the MCU screen on the left bottom and it is super easy to switch in and out of auto vs digging through MCU settings.


----------



## Jetstreamsky

Yes, but that’s two steps, one on each side of the steering, whilst you’re trying to see out of a drenched windshield. I had a two hour drive last week with extremely variable rain mixed with vehicle spray and even arcs of water from oncoming large vehicles; it was extremely unpleasant and dangerous compared to a standard stalk control. You need single actions to control all that, so being able to pin the menu open let’s you choose the mode instantly. I hope that autowipe really becomes good, but there are so many variables especially when you include snow and salt spray I think you’ll need better access even then.


----------



## MarkB

I love this solution -- at least for increasing the sensitivity.


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1117553497698897922


----------



## Bokonon

kataleen said:


> On the eGolf for example you can have the auto on or off and at the same time use the three timer settings, which in the auto mode translate into how sensitive (often) you want the wipers to react to water. On the lowest setting for timer, if I switch on auto, the wipers will wait until there is a considerable amount of water on the windshield (not a lot) until they wipe and also if I set it to high, it will wipe at the first drops of water.


I used to drive an e-Golf too. Re-purposing that little wiper switch to control sensitivity in auto mode was a nice touch... and essential, in my experience, because I always found myself toggling between the various wiper sensitivities as I drove. With the Model 3, I've found that the wipers are much more naturally in-tune with my preferences on most firmware versions, but there was a stretch of firmware releases between December and February where I found myself pining for that sensitivity switch, or some equivalent.

Which brings me to...



MarkB said:


> I love this solution -- at least for increasing the sensitivity.
> 
> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1117553497698897922


I feel like this solution has been suggested so many times that there's no way that it (or a viable alternative) isn't already under development 

If Tesla implements this approach, though, I think there also needs to be a way to request a reduction in sensitivity. Otherwise, over the course of a drive, the wipers will naturally gravitate toward the most sensitive setting.

The other solution I've seen proposed up-thread that I like is using a double-tap of the button to increase the wiper speed (if manual) or sensitivity (if auto) until it reaches the maximum value, after which point it cycles back to the minimum value. A triple-tap could also set it to maximum immediately. Either way, there's no need to take your eyes off the road.


----------



## Long Ranger

Bokonon said:


> Either way, there's no need to take your eyes off the road.


Exactly. We really need a way to turn up the wipers without taking your eyes of the road. This seems like a critical safety issue to me. Lots of good proposals out there: double click the button, hold the button, combo button and scroll wheel, etc. Just surprised nothing has been released yet. Any of these manual solutions seem pretty simple to implement.

And 8.5 auto wipers might be a bit better, but they're still woefully inadequate in lots of conditions for me. Tried to let them just do their thing this morning. They would frequently wait to swipe until I couldn't see the lane markings at all and I could just make out that the car in front of me was a dark blurry sedan. Was initially trying to measure if I could read its license plate... I couldn't even tell if the car had a license plate!


----------



## SalisburySam

Yep, on 8.5 the Auto wipers are a lot better for me, at least in the daylight hours. That said, they are still slow to begin at all and it has to be really raining to get them going the first time. From that point, they’re pretty good. IMO, still a long way to go for this important safety issue. As is, one of the manual settings still works better for me. Haven’t had a night experience yet but on earlier firmware, the Auto setting was a non-starter.


----------



## Andy Kaplan

For me, still terrible. On 8.5 -- and the auto wipers almost never work well. Too slow, too fast, too sensitive, not sensitive -- I find myself during a rain storm driving without being able to see for several seconds, maybe longer (not as much of a problem on autopilot, but still not great.) Hard to believe such an awesome car has such a crappy wiper system.


----------



## Nom

Ditto. I’m frankly pretty surprised they aren’t better by now. So many experiments with feedback. People overriding all the time. I’d think the machine learning would have made bigger improvements by now. (I’m assuming they are leveraging a machine learning approach).


----------



## B.Silva

As others have said, I think the wipers are the weakest part of the car. Here in Seattle we get frequent light rain. I am constantly pressing the button to wipe the screen. It just isn't sensitive enough. I would think that it would see all the times I hit the wipe button and learn from it.


----------



## TMK26

This past weekend I noticed something rather odd about my wipers:

I was parked in my garage facing forward (the front of the car is facing the garge wall/storage shelves opposite the garage door) playing some Tesla Acrade with my 6 y/o. Windows were down and the garage door was open to get some fresh air. All of a sudden it starts raining out... heavily. Then the wipers turn on at high speed (I do have Auto Wipers set to on). The car never got wet. I wonder what made the wipers turn on?


----------



## Jason F

TMK26 said:


> This past weekend I noticed something rather odd about my wipers:
> 
> I was parked in my garage facing forward (the front of the car is facing the garge wall/storage shelves opposite the garage door) playing some Tesla Acrade with my 6 y/o. Windows were down and the garage door was open to get some fresh air. All of a sudden it starts raining out... heavily. Then the wipers turn on at high speed (I do have Auto Wipers set to on). The car never got wet. I wonder what made the wipers turn on?


We know it uses the cameras to sense the rain. So maybe it is using more than the front cameras and actually uses the rear camera as well and it was able to see the rain.


----------



## Klaus-rf

Maybe it's just afraid of rain??


----------



## MelindaV

TMK26 said:


> This past weekend I noticed something rather odd about my wipers:
> 
> I was parked in my garage facing forward (the front of the car is facing the garge wall/storage shelves opposite the garage door) playing some Tesla Acrade with my 6 y/o. Windows were down and the garage door was open to get some fresh air. All of a sudden it starts raining out... heavily. Then the wipers turn on at high speed (I do have Auto Wipers set to on). The car never got wet. I wonder what made the wipers turn on?


it just wanted to be prepared


----------



## Dangermouse

TMK26 said:


> This past weekend I noticed something rather odd about my wipers:
> 
> I was parked in my garage facing forward (the front of the car is facing the garge wall/storage shelves opposite the garage door) playing some Tesla Acrade with my 6 y/o. Windows were down and the garage door was open to get some fresh air. All of a sudden it starts raining out... heavily. Then the wipers turn on at high speed (I do have Auto Wipers set to on). The car never got wet. I wonder what made the wipers turn on?


This lends credence to the theory that it observes rain falling instead of gauging how much water is on the windshield. Makes some sense since the windshield is millimeters away from the camera and not an easy thing to focus on/quantify.

Wishlist: wiper controls back on a card that STAYS UP like it did until around mid 2018, before an update moved it two clicks back in the menus. Once wipers are on, adjustment selector should stay up.

Second wishlist: a sensitivity preference selector for auto wipers. Different strokes for different folks.


----------



## MelindaV

Idk that is the case... often when parked facing the back of my garage, with the garage door closed (and clear skies anyway), mine picks up something off the wall and triggers the wipers. it may be the random bits of sparkle reflecting back throwing it off.


----------



## EValuatED

MelindaV said:


> Idk that is the case... often when parked facing the back of my garage, with the garage door closed (and clear skies anyway), mine picks up something off the wall and triggers the wipers. it may be the random bits of sparkle reflecting back throwing it off.
> View attachment 28560


Agree... similar situation, where something in my garage occasionally triggers auto-wipers. But overall works fine for me, except (now more rare) waiting for it to activate in drizzle conditions.


----------



## Kizzy

MelindaV said:


> Idk that is the case... often when parked facing the back of my garage, with the garage door closed (and clear skies anyway), mine picks up something off the wall and triggers the wipers. it may be the random bits of sparkle reflecting back throwing it off.
> View attachment 28560


It's generally my dirty windshield that triggers the wipers. When parked under street or garage lights, I often need to turn off the wipers.


----------



## JP White

I have found the performance of the wipers in recent weeks to be excellent. I hardly ever get frustrated they are taking too long to come on now. recent firmware update must have fixed this issue. Are others seeing improvements?


----------



## Mr. Spacely

JP White said:


> I have found the performance of the wipers in recent weeks to be excellent. I hardly ever get frustrated they are taking too long to come on now. recent firmware update must have fixed this issue. Are others seeing improvements?


Yes. Just like everything on the car, it has gotten better with almost every software update...


----------



## TesLou

JP White said:


> I have found the performance of the wipers in recent weeks to be excellent. I hardly ever get frustrated they are taking too long to come on now. recent firmware update must have fixed this issue. Are others seeing improvements?


I have to agree 100%. I just completed an 800 mile round trip drive; at least half of it in fairly heavy rain. The auto wipers required ZERO intervention by me. I think Tesla has finally got them where they need to be.


----------



## Love

There was a great back and forth between some beta testers on the wipers a few software updates ago... I remember them (the wipers) going nuts in a light rain, lol.

They've improved a great deal and now I think they just have to dial in the edge cases. One being a very light mist ... which we just had yesterday (more of a sleet/rain/snow mix) and I felt they could have fired sooner and more frequently. No biggie of course, just a press on the stalk and bam... wipe.


----------



## Long Ranger

TesLou said:


> I have to agree 100%. I just completed an 800 mile round trip drive; at least half of it in fairly heavy rain. The auto wipers required ZERO intervention by me. I think Tesla has finally got them where they need to be.


I haven't seen any significant improvement. Do you use a hydrophobic coating like Rain-X on your windshield? Just curious if everyone that is happy with the wipers uses one.

Without Rain-X there's no way someone could drive my car even 800 feet in fairly heavy rain without hitting the wiper button multiple times or putting them on manual. It's always been nearly impossible to get the auto wipers to wipe at anything close to the manual continuous speed (3). Still the case on 2019.32.12.2.

I put Rain-X on a couple weeks ago, and it seems to be making a huge difference. It's been unusually dry lately though, so I can't say for sure if that's solved the issue.

My number one request has always been to just give me some way to turn up the wipers without looking away from the road. I don't care if auto wipers aren't perfect, but I really hate not having a control at my fingertips to turn them up when visibility is poor.


----------



## Carotene

I've seen zero improvement. 32.12.1. No rain-x. The auto wipers essentially do not work. Even in decent rain I need to hit the button and select a fixed setting. We had a 2007 mazda 3 with auto wipers that was lightyears ahead in performance.


----------



## Mr. Spacely

Wow. We've seen significant improvement, and don't use Rain-X...


----------



## TesLou

Long Ranger said:


> I haven't seen any significant improvement. Do you use a hydrophobic coating like Rain-X on your windshield? Just curious if everyone that is happy with the wipers uses one.
> 
> Without Rain-X there's no way someone could drive my car even 800 feet in fairly heavy rain without hitting the wiper button multiple times or putting them on manual. It's always been nearly impossible to get the auto wipers to wipe at anything close to the manual continuous speed (3). Still the case on 2019.32.12.2.
> 
> I put Rain-X on a couple weeks ago, and it seems to be making a huge difference. It's been unusually dry lately though, so I can't say for sure if that's solved the issue.
> 
> My number one request has always been to just give me some way to turn up the wipers without looking away from the road. I don't care if auto wipers aren't perfect, but I really hate not having a control at my fingertips to turn them up when visibility is poor.


No Rain-X for me.


----------



## kataleen

Since it was quite rainy around here for a few weeks straight I decided to pay more attention to how the wipers work and what circumstances triggers them. I had quite a bit of a revelation. Not sure if this is the true reason behind so many contradicting opinions for essentially the same hardware/software. Also it's possible that others may have posted about this before.

What I realized is that while driving through a moderate to heavy rain, the car has no problem keeping the windshield clear and wiping when needed. HOWEVER...when driving in low to no rain, but behind other cars that generate spray, or trucks in adjacent lanes, the wipers were pretty much clueless. At that point I started to think how they sense the water drops and my eyes instantly looked at the top of the windshield. Yep, no water there. The windshield was almost clear, whereas the middle to lower windshield was soaked in water and dirt.

Then I went a step further, and looked up the Model 3 aerodynamics. Aside from the distance to the car in front, which is obviously a factor on how high the spray goes on the windshield, the air flow seems to confirm that it's much more likely to get water sprayed on the mid to lower part than up top where the camera is.

Here is a good picture of the air flow on the windshield.
[IMG='width:437px;']https://unpluggedperformance.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Unplugged-Performance-Tesla-Model-3-Aerodynamic-Study_2.-OEM-CAR-No-Mirrors_Front.jpg[/IMG]
Source: https://unpluggedperformance.com/aerodynamic-study-of-tesla-model-3/

I would like to hear if possible more reports from driving in these situations.


----------



## kataleen

Just had a chance today to confirm my previous suspicion. In this case there was absolutely no rain, only spray from the car in front.






This would be the same in light rain that would be light enough not to trigger the sensor. In this situation anyone would get frustrated simply because we can't tell whether the droplets are from the sky or the car in front, and assume it's raining that hard and the sensor does not see it or it's very slow to respond. I think this is a design flaw not of the car but of the "Auto" feature of the wipers. It simply does not have a good enough sample of the windshield to make a good decision.

I tried to record the area near the camera, it's not very obvious, but it's mostly free of any water drops, obviously not enough anyway to trigger the wipers.


----------



## Cycle11111

kataleen said:


> Just had a chance today to confirm my previous suspicion. In this case there was absolutely no rain, only spray from the car in front.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This would be the same in light rain that would be light enough not to trigger the sensor. In this situation anyone would get frustrated simply because we can't tell whether the droplets are from the sky or the car in front, and assume it's raining that hard and the sensor does not see it or it's very slow to respond. I think this is a design flaw not of the car but of the "Auto" feature of the wipers. It simply does not have a good enough sample of the windshield to make a good decision.
> 
> I tried to record the area near the camera, it's not very obvious, but it's mostly free of any water drops, obviously not enough anyway to trigger the wipers.


I have to say I disagree mostly with what you say. The earliest versions of auto wipers were marginal at best and if I used them I had to intervene constantly to get satisfactorily results. Now the recent version that is supposedly ML trained I find is not perfect but equal to or slightly better than those I had in two Mercedes and one Hyundai. According to what I read if you have to get them to swipe manually that goes into the data set to improve performance. I have not had chattering issues except occasionally on our MX but not on the M3. Note rainX or other lubricants plus worn blades can be major causes of this. Also to be transparent I have used the new auto wipers on both our cars for rain and snow extensively since the last two releases came out in Dec - we live in Truckee CA and I work in the valley.


----------



## GDN

We've had rain the last 10 days and I would say the wipers have improved quite a bit. Especially on dark mornings, even with light rain or mist. They aren't perfect yet, but improvement is good.


----------



## skygraff

Yeah, light rain either results in no wipes or constant fast wipes, lately. I’ve also noticed that the ambient light impacts things as well (lots of wipes at intersection but not enough wipes between more lighted areas at night).

It seemed to have gotten better but, since December (2019) updates, things have deteriorated and I get the camera blocked message a lot even when the windshield is completely clean.


----------



## kataleen

The thing I am not sure I understand, maybe someone with better knowledge on this can enlighten me, is how will machine learning help in the cases where there's minimal water drops on the front facing cameras area, but lots of water on the rest of the windshield. What does it rely on, as input data? I am pretty sure, based on my limited optical/photography knowledge that it can't "see" drops in the air before they hit the windshield.
I have the feeling that we're asking the system to make a decision for the entire windshield when it can only see 5% of it, which of course will not always be correct unless there's uniform water coverage (i.e. normal rain)


----------



## garsh

kataleen said:


> The thing I am not sure I understand, maybe someone with better knowledge on this can enlighten me, is how will machine learning help in the cases where there's minimal water drops on the front facing cameras area, but lots of water on the rest of the windshield.


It won't. 

But the eventual goal of auto-wipers is to allow Full Self Driving to function in rain. So in that sense, it doesn't matter if the rest of the windshield is covered with muck - as long as the cameras can see, the computer will be happy. In the meantime, the meatsack in the driver's seat can just keep hitting the wiper button if they want to be able to see as well. 

I'm guessing that Tesla only uses images from the front-facing cameras. There's no reason why they couldn't use input from any and all of the cameras in the future. Well, there is a reason - it will require a LOT of processing power in the car to handle more cameras just for detecting rain, and I'm sure that they want to set aside the majority of the current processing power for FSD.


----------



## Kimmo57

garsh said:


> In the meantime, the meatsack in the driver's seat can just keep hitting the wiper button if they want to be able to see as well.


My finger's getting quite a workout...


----------



## Dasher

A slightly tangential topic...

Here in the UK we have 'enjoyed' the wettest February on record. This has meant that Dasher's wipers have had a good workout, as have the washers. The dirt coming off the roads, when washed off, causes quite a waterfall down the driver's window, increasingly obscuring the view of the driver's mirror. Is this a right-hand drive problem only, or does it also happen on left-hand drive cars?

Previous cars I've had have varied in their ability to trap surplus water from the windscreen and channel it down before it splurges over the side window, but the Model 3 (at least mine) isn't very successful at this.


----------



## JasonF

Dasher said:


> Previous cars I've had have varied in their ability to trap surplus water from the windscreen and channel it down before it splurges over the side window, but the Model 3 (at least mine) isn't very successful at this.


That's the driver/passenger window frame which does that job. Frameless window cars can't do that, and water washes over the sides. I had a Mitubishi Eclipse previously, and it had the same issue.


----------



## NR4P

My US car soaks me if the driver window is slightly open and its raining. Even windshield washer feature drips inside the car and on my left leg.


----------



## garsh

Sounds like Tesla made some big changes to the automatic wiper neural net in 2021.4.15.5.
I'm personally hoping that this stops it from wiping when their is no rain, and maybe stop it from wiping too quickly when the rain isn't that heavy.


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1389454497471209479


----------



## GDN

garsh said:


> Sounds like Tesla made some big changes to the automatic wiper neural net in 2021.4.15.5.
> I'm personally hoping that this stops it from wiping when their is no rain, and maybe stop it from wiping too quickly when the rain isn't that heavy.
> 
> 
> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1389454497471209479


I'm running 2021.4.15.5 since last week. Drove through a light shower or two this past weekend. Wipers responded perfectly every time.


----------



## Kizzy

garsh said:


> Sounds like Tesla made some big changes to the automatic wiper neural net in 2021.4.15.5.
> I'm personally hoping that this stops it from wiping when their is no rain, and maybe stop it from wiping too quickly when the rain isn't that heavy.
> 
> 
> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1389454497471209479


I'd be interested in getting reports from people on the AP 2.x computer about improvement/comparison with the FSD computer.


----------



## Bernard

GDN said:


> I'm running 2021.4.15.5 since last week. Drove through a light shower or two this past weekend. Wipers responded perfectly every time.


I am running the same, but wipers are still not responsive enough here in Hawaii. That they cannot handle tropical downpours is not a serious issue, as I doubt that any car's wipers could and it's better in such cases to let the worst pass over and then resume driving. The problem is at the other end of the scale: they still cannot handle fog condensation and light drizzle -- if the accumulation of droplets on the windshield is slow, the system simply never initiates a wipe, even though visibility drops to zero. (This is a common occurrence on the saddle road between Hilo and the Kona coast, at an altitude reaching over 6'000ft, with frequent fog.) And when the system initiates a wipe, the delay for action is usually far too high: even with a reasonable rain level (not just a drizzle), it takes it a good 5-6s to get going.
Manual mode is a pain to use (the screen is not usable and the audio commands, while they work fine, are tedious) and, with just 4 settings, is not flexible enough.
So I end up pushing on the left stick over and over and over and... It's a good thing that I live on the dry coast ;-)

I had a European Passat from the 2006 model year that was *way* better than that. I think it was a case of hubris from Musk et al.: they thought rain sensors would be unnecessary as the cameras used for Autopilot would do the job just as well; and they also neglected to provide a sensitivity adjustment (for drivers' preferences -- e.g., I am farsighted, so stuff on the windshield bothers me a lot less than it does my wife, who is nearsighted). They were wrong (so far): while the autowipers have indeed improved over 3 years of firmwares (my Model 3 left the factory in April 2018, but received the HW 3.0 upgrade last year), they are still not on par with those on competing German sedans (which use rain sensors, have sensitivity adjustments, etc.). This is not a first-world issue: it is a safety issue, since a few seconds during which one has a hard time seeing through the windshield are more than enough to cause an accident.


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## JasonF

Bernard said:


> I had a European Passat from the 2006 model year that was *way* better than that. I think it was a case of hubris from Musk et al.: they thought rain sensors would be unnecessary as the cameras used for Autopilot would do the job just as well


A rain sensor is really just a very low resolution camera that's only good enough to measure light input, so technically that's correct. The trick is how to get the software to do something simple on a much more complex device.

Most likely the way it works now is the camera is comparing the clarity of the view to a second or two ago. That might be why slow spitting rains don't trigger the wipers, because it's slow enough that the windshield looks about the same as it did a second ago. What it probably should look for _in addition_ to second-to-second occlusion comparison is color shift - because when it's raining, or there's sand or mud spraying on the glass, it's going to refract a lot of light and cause a sudden shift in the visible color palette. Which is essentially what rain sensors do, use visible light to detect a color spectrum shift.


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## Long Ranger

Bernard said:


> This is not a first-world issue: it is a safety issue, since a few seconds during which one has a hard time seeing through the windshield are more than enough to cause an accident.


I agree. For about my first year of ownership this was by far my biggest issue with the car. I kept thinking that I would gladly give up all Autopilot functionality just to have manual wiper controls using the scroll wheel and/or wiper button. I'd still love manual wiper controls, but it is better now.

The big improvement for me came when I started using Rain-X. The software has improved as well, but with Rain-X the behavior immediately changed from under-wiping to over-wiping. I'll take the minor annoyance of overly aggressive wiping over unsafe visibility any day.


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## garsh

Long Ranger said:


> The big improvement for me came when I started using Rain-X. The software has improved as well, but with Rain-X the behavior immediately changed from under-wiping to over-wiping. I'll take the minor annoyance of overly aggressive wiping over unsafe visibility any day.


I can't believe I went through several decades of life without using Rain-X (or any other similar product).
If anybody hasn't tried it yet, PLEASE DO. It makes an INCREDIBLE difference for being able to see out of your windshield.

Sure, it wears off after a while and needs to be reapplied, but honestly, it never completely wears off, and even in a very-worn-off state, windshield clarity is much improved over using nothing at all. You'll never need to use the "fast" wiper setting again.
The instructions seem a little daunting (make sure windshield is clean and dry, use a microfiber towel, wipe off completely). You're fine to ignore them. Nowadays, I just put it on with a paper towel. It doesn't seem to matter. I'll still clean the windshield first, but I don't worry about it being spotless and completely dry. And I don't bother trying to wipe it completely off - it's ok if the windshield still looks hazy after putting it on. After driving through the first rain, that haziness completely disappears.


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## SoFlaModel3

garsh said:


> Sounds like Tesla made some big changes to the automatic wiper neural net in 2021.4.15.5.
> I'm personally hoping that this stops it from wiping when their is no rain, and maybe stop it from wiping too quickly when the rain isn't that heavy.
> 
> 
> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1389454497471209479


This is a curious improvement … I only care what rain looks like on the windshield for driving the wipers.

That said … I feel like auto wipers have been really good lately in general.


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