Winshield wiper motor uses too much power

Another thing that kinda bugs me about the current LEAF is the amount of power the windshield wiper motor appears to use, and I was reminded of it during this morning's rain storm. It just seems like it's too much.

Take a look at your Energy Info. screen and the "other" meter when it activates. Then turn the windshield wipers off and try the rear wiper for a comparison. The rear motor hardly uses any power at all! Now I know that the rear motor only has to move one wiper arm and all, and a smaller one at that, but still...

Am I right, people?

Didn't Phil say that was a "fake" meter and didn't really measure power? That it was just a pre-programmed indication on the meter when stuff happened?

Randy said:

Didn't Phil say that was a "fake" meter and didn't really measure power? That it was just a pre-programmed indication on the meter when stuff happened?

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Really? So how comes it don't move when the rear wiper motor activates?

The other day I had the energy display screen up the same time as the wipers were on intermittent, maybe 4 second interval. The other systems meter moved up and down perfectly in sync with each cycle of the wipers. Kind of sad what passes for entertainment at my age.

I also noticed the rear wiper didn't seem to move the needle. Chalked it up to the swept area of the rear wiper being so much smaller and since there's no need for high speed the motor is probably much less rugged.

How much power do you think it is using?

Doesn't the acid battery run that option instead of the traction?

True but the pull on the 12v battery should correlate to a related increase in draw across the dc-dc converter.

It wouldn't be terribly hard to measure the current draw.

Yep! Accessory power is all a simulation...

Randy said:

Didn't Phil say that was a "fake" meter and didn't really measure power? That it was just a pre-programmed indication on the meter when stuff happened?

Click to expand...

Bicster said:

It wouldn't be terribly hard to measure the current draw.

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Pull the fuse and insert ammeter leads. But, too cold in my garage now - maybe in a couple of months.

Windshield wiper motor uses too much power... and the window motors don't use enough...

It's almost funny to watch how long it takes for my window to roll up sometimes. I'm waiting for it to get stuck half way (it almost seems like it will).

mwalsh said:

Really? So how comes it don't move when the rear wiper motor activates?

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I'm guessing for the same reason that the heated seats and heated steering wheel don't show up - it just wasn't programmed into the control computer.