Faulty wiper stalk - temperamental washers / intermittent

VrX

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I have a problem with my washers / intermittent wipers which comes and goes, typically as MOT is due in a few weeks it has suddenly got worse...

I am 99.9% sure it is due to the stalk, especially the intermittent switch as can get them working again if I fiddle with this at times.

Basically when it decides to play up I lose my washers totally and intermittent changes to single wipe position (confirmed with vagcom and in real world situations) when in intermittent they are just classified as off still, if I push stalk down and hold it then it shows as intermittent and instead of continuously wiping it does single wipe and then as it is in intermittent (e.g. if not raining just does not wipe again).

Unfortunately do not have codes to hand but from memory I get two, one a intermittent wiper fault and other is incorrect coding (linked to wipers).

I can at times get them working again by pushing stalk down and then pulling towards for washers, if the washers then work everything sorts itself out and stalk goes back to being normal.

I am guessing no other option but to replace stalks... Is there any difference in stalks? Noticed a few on ebay with last 2 letters different on part number (really dont fancy ripping steering wheel off just to get part number to then have to do it again when I get new ones).

I have cruise control, from the pictures of the stalks without it there seems to be a section for this to be added, is this the case? (e.g. if I bought a set without the cruise/control stalk could I just transplant mine?)

And finally... with the wheel coming off is there any precautions I need to take with airbag (apart from the obvious) so I don't get an airbag light on? (I have vagcom if this can reset it if needed).
 
Well 99.9% sure I have now fixed this, being an intermittent fault hard to say for sure but 3 days now and washers working every single time first time (before I was lucky if they'd work once first time normally would take a lot of messing about with stalk if I was lucky to get them working at all).

With complete units with CC going for about £150-200 on ebay I wanted to try and fix as cheap as possible so picked up a unit without the main ring and no CC stalk (£25) with intention of hopefully swapping my CC stalk into this one. On first look it was doable but extremely fiddly (lots of little bits to transfer over etc...) but wiper stalk looked easier to transfer so swapped that out for mine. There is a small L shaped circuit board on back which mine looked a bit more worn than replacement (but wouldn't have said overly worn) but as I have noticed that the switch on top of stalk seemed to have some involvement I swapped the stalk itself as well which turned out to be really easy.

So all in all a cheap fix and fingers crossed it stays working.
 

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