Hi,

Just thought I would share this.  The wipers on my daughters fabia decided to not turn off!  High speed and low speed  operated but with the ignition on the wipers would not turn off.

I found an excellent video by Igor on CarsExposed

 

and this explained the problem is normally caused by dirty contacts (copper filings etc) shorting these contacts.

I got the stalk assembly out and the contacts were covered in a greasy dirty paste.  After cleaning and re-assembly wipers are now working fine.

Assembling the rear latch can be quite fiddley and the first time I got the rear screen set of sliding contacts in the wrong place.  So apart from the wipers being on all the time the rear screen wiper did not work and the screen wash jets were on all the time.  Took it apart and this time assembled latch correctly and now all is well.

 

He is a mechanic after my own heart and makes me aware of how losing vision has impeded me also not keeping my hand in by repairing cars for others, mine are just too reliable to keep me in training.

 

Its the little connectors that I most struggle with, once removed & I know which part to push/pull etc then its childs play but it might be years before I do the same job again, hopefully never so it gets forgotten.

 

He removes these connectors with ease using only one hand as the other is holding his camera-phone, I can be stuck for what seems like hours with a recalcitrant hard to reach and see connector.

 

I must buy a couple of the picks that he uses.

It is a bit annoying that this sort of problem has been known about by VW Group for at least 20 years, there used to be a lot of this going on with VW Passat B5 models and leaving everything in place and spraying in cleaner around the steering wheel centre usually washed out enough of the metallic particles. 

 

So, now I'm ready for when my wife's 2015 Polo plays up, or maybe not as it normally has its wipers set on "auto" as that car has "rain sensing" so hopefully a lot less wear going on on that stalk.