How to Operate Rain Sensing Windshield Wipers

How to Operate Rain Sensing Windshield Wipers

When you bought your Acura, it may have come with options you have yet to discover. If one of those features happens to be rain-sensing windshield wipers, you’ve struck it big! That’s one feature that is both extremely convenient and safety-enhancing - you’ll wonder how you ever did without it. But do you know how to operate rain sensing windshield wipers on your Acura?

There are a couple slight differences in wiper controls, depending on the Acura model you have. If it’s a car like the Acura TLX, ILX, or RLX, you don’t have a rear wiper. But on SUVs like the Acura MDX and RDX, the rear wiper function is on the same stalk. It really doesn’t change, though, how to operate rain sensing windshield wipers on your Acura other than another switch to be mindful of.

How Do I Know if I Have Rain Sensing Wipers?

Check out the windshield wiper control stalk. Do you see the four capitalized letters ‘AUTO’? If you do, your Acura has rain-sensing wipers. If not, your vehicle still has intermittent, low, and high-speed wiper controls, but won’t come on automatically when the rain comes down.

How Does My Acura Know It’s Raining?

On your windshield, behind the rearview mirror, there’s a sensor mounted against the glass on the inside. It’s extremely simple. When that sensor detects that there’s rain or snow falling on the glass opposite the sensor, it activates your rain-sensing windshield wipers. That is, if you’ve activated the feature.

Where is the Acura Windshield Wiper Sensor?

How to Activate Rain Sensing Windshield Wipers

You’re going to be astonished at the simplicity of the wiper system. On the windshield wiper stalk, attached to the right side of the steering column, you’ll find different settings labeled vertically: MIST, OFF, AUTO, LO, and HI. All you need to do is move the lever down from its resting position until it clicks into the first spot below OFF, which is AUTO.

Notice the small arrow pointing right on beside the word AUTO? That’s showing you to the rotary dial for the front wipers. You can adjust the rain-sensing windshield wiper sensitivity simply by rolling that rotary switch up and down.

Acura Windshield Wiper Sensitivity

Flip the lever down once more for constant wipers at LO speed, and down once more for HI speed. These won’t turn off automatically though - you’ll need to do it yourself.

Operating Your Acura Windshield Wipers

If you were wondering how to operate rain sensing windshield wipers on your Acura, it’s as easy as that.