Had not driven 95 SC2 in about 2 weeks. Sits out in hot sun in the driveway.

Went to move vehicle to wash further up in the driveway. Turned key, wipers started wiping with control stock off. Moved the stock to all positions multiple times, speed of wiping seem to stay the same. Wash function did function.

Turned ignition to off. Worked the stock back and forth across range trying to sweep contacts. Did it about 30 times. No change.

Washed car with garden hose.

Turned ignition to return vehicle to different spot in driveway. Wipers behaved 100% normally including intermittent and wash. Moved stalk back and forth through positions. Proper operation continued.

I am reasonably sure the logic board that controls the wiper motor is located within the motor at the base of the driver wiper. Obviously it should not be leaking water and should get shorted out if it is.

I ask you based on the limited information above, wiper stalk needs good contact cleaning, replace wiper stalk which means replacing multifunction switch which is not that difficult but a pain in the ***, or wiper motor replacement?

I will be driving it more to collect more data points.

 

If it was a Ford it would be the switch, we replace them ALL the time. When they fail the off position turns into the slowest intermittent setting, so there is no off setting.
That being said the park function is usually not switch controlled, rather it is a separate system in the wiper motor to park the wipers when the switch is turned off. Pulse pushes the wiper out of the park position and then the park system takes over finishing the sweep and parks the wipers.

I suspect the motor has dirty park contacts, so it does not know when the wipers are parked so they continue to run with the switch having no influence to speed. The washer circuit is stand alone so it makes sense that it worked when the wipers were running away.

 

I'd try opening the motor and spraying it with some CRC Electrical Contact Cleaner, derf. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Of course, you'll have to remove it in order to do that. If you go that far to open it, at least take a look at the brushes in it. Maybe just go to a local you pull it yard and grab another one off the lowest mileage one you find.

 

Tried it today, worked as advertised.
The one strange thing that confuses me is that when they were running out of control, it seemed like I could still control slow versus fast. Meaning the highest setting still sped up the wipers and they stayed sped up until I moved it to some other position.

​​​​​​I have had other contacts sweep issues with this multifunction switch. The hazard button refused to operate the hazards without about 50 sweeps because it never ever ever gets used. As long as I exercise it once in a while it is now fine.

Thank you for the education on non Ford wipers. I had no idea the sweep motion was controlled by two separate features of the system.

As for Ford wiper switches, I've already replaced the one in our 2014 Escape. Indeed they did not shut off. Luckily it's a straightforward replacement on that vehicle.