Rear Wiper Motor broken?

[pGVa]

My rear wiper has been not working all winter, and its time to get it fixed. I have a 2005 base model Vibe with manual transmission.

Disassembly was a real chore, as the spindle and nuts were ultra seized up with rust/grit and I had to ask around to see if someone could air wrench it off. I am fairly confident this is the source of the issue, as it seems to be a common cause of a busted rear wiper motor. But I want to be sure it is the motor before I order a replacement because the only affordable motors are from retailers that don't seem to like doing returns. And that's $130 gone...

Back to the issue: so, there is no response or sound coming from the motor when I turn on the switch. The corresponding fuse underneath the steering wheel tests fine. The switch for the wiper and washer fluid works physically, and the fluid comes out just fine. When I look at the motor, there is more rust surrounding an area.

I disconnected the 4-wire power supply connector from the motor. Putting my multimeter's red lead on the red wire's prong and the black lead onto the car frame (ground), I see 0.4 V when the wiper switch is off. When I flick it on, it drops down to 0.1 or 0.2 and then back up to 0.4. When I take both the leads off I get 0 Volts. I had the multimeter on a DC setting -- is that correct?

Should the switching not make a change in the measure voltage on the multimeter?
I don't understand electrical troubleshooting too well, so I could use some advice on this.

Thanks.

[Bookworm]

I don't have a pinout, but in general, the motors themselves are 12 volts, so if you have the right pinouts for the constant, you should be able to give it 12 volts and have it move.

I'm sure one of the other folks with come by with much better information. (Right now, I'm dealing with two cats, one of which ate some rat bait, and I don't know which. )

[andrewclaus]

On my diagram, the motor lead is blue with a white stripe. Try jumping 12V to it.

[jolt]

Attached is the wiring for the rear wiper for a 2003 Matrix which should be very close, if not same as the Vibe. By this schematic: The white with black stripe wire (W-B) is the ground wire. Check continuity to ground on this wire to make sure you have a good ground. The Light Blue (L) wire is the 12 volt power for this system, check for 12 volts at this wire when going to ground with other lead wire on your meter. If you have no 12 volts on the light blue wire, you need to keep searching up the wire to the power source to see where you have lost power at.

The light blue with black stripe (L-B) and light blue with white stripe (L-W) are timing power wires used to get the wiper motor back to it park position and the delay power from the rear wiper relay. The L-W wire is the wire that powers the rear wiper motor but not on all the time because of timing and motor position.

If you are careful, you could test the wiper motor by unplugging it and hooking up +12 volt power to the L-W wire and grounding (-) the W-B wire in the motor connector. This would just run the motor and not test anything else like the cam switch that is in the wiper motor which could also prevent the wiper from running if it was bad. It is not really a useful test at this point as it does not rule out the wiper motor assembly as good or bad.

NOTE: The rear glass has to be closed and the rear glass switch must be made for IG Relay to be energized so that power can be sent down the light blue wire to the rear wiper motor and rear wiper relay. You have three fuses that must be good for power to operate the rear wiper motor (see top of schematic).

[Bookworm]

I knew someone would have the better information. I have the wiring diagram, but it's been a rough day.

Good news - it looks like the cat ate less than a 'start treatment' dose. So it might end up a bit sick, but not at a real risk of dropping dead.

I did not realize that there were three fuses involved. I guess I've been lucky across two cars.

[jolt]

It is only two fuses for the rear wiper motor to run. The third fuse is for the rear wiper washer pump motor. My mistake about that. I had two graduation party's to get to and had to leave. At least the info is there to work with.

[pGVa]

Thanks for all your help. My wires were Red, Black, Blue and Yellow, different that that very detailed Matrix info. That said, I had a lot of difficulty making sense of that highly detailed info; I was going to try to put 12V to the motor using batteries in series, but I stopped in at a repair shop a block north of their house and a mechanic did it for me, free of charge. He confirmed that the motor was totally unresponsive with 12V, and that the continuity of ground and power and the supply connector was good. Now I can confidently order a new motor.
Thanks for all this info as well, which would have been my next step.