Windshield wiper slugish in cold weather..

[metaxa44]

Anybody have any idea what to do with windshield wiper , when it is cold it gets slugish..
I did open it and lubricated it before ...
It seems wiper motor freezes ...
Sometimes in a really cold morning takes 10 15 minutes with defrost heat till it start working..

[kumquat]

Probably need to replace the motor unless you want to try to take it apart and rebuild it.

[Chiadog]

I never had to work on Vibe wipers, but I had a car I parked outside years ago that developed this exact problem. One of the wiper spindles that the wiper blade attaches to had about 1 drop of water get past its seal and would slow or stop the wipers depending on temperature. The motor was fine in my case. The spindle had to be dried out and lubricated. I don't remember how long this "fix" worked, but I think it outlasted the car.

[Davicof]

I had this problem with the front wipers one winter. When the weather fell below freezing it stopped working, but when it warmed up it worked. Worked in the cold and traced the problem to the motor. Replacing the motor solved the problem. Never found what was wrong as replacing was easier than opening a motor and working in the cold to test further.

[jolt]

You could try spraying all the moving parts of the wiper linkage and pivots with WD-40 to see if it could drive any moisture out of the joints if that is where the drag is coming from when the water freezes.

If you had the wiper motor/gear box apart, did you try to lube it? The gear box should not be full of lube and do not use wheel bearing or chassis grease as it is to thick when cold.