I recently purchased a used 1999 Ford Expedition with about 94K miles on it ... overall, it's in pretty good shape for the miles & price ($7K). My first Ford truck!

While it does need some undercarriage work (ball joints, stab bars and rear axle grease seal replaced), one thing that I discovered was that the rear wiper doesn't work. The front wipers work fine, as does rest of the functions on the console switch stem.

Is this a common problem? I seem to recall that Ford had some trouble with the wipers on the F150 platforms.

Any suggestions on how to fix this or where to isolate the problem?

Thanks!

 

Rear wiper is a common problem on the Expys. Go to a parts store and get a new motor for it and replace it. You can run a search here for the "how to" on the replacement of the wiper motor. Something about the plastic gears used, strip out and cause it not to work or work sometimes after a period of time.

 

I've got an 1999 with 67K miles and the same rear wiper issue. It used to be intermittent, and then quit working all together. However I believe I got it to go once by manually moving the wiper up a little. If the issue is indeed a stripped plastic gear, then it makes sense that I had simply moved it past the missing teeth and into the "meat" of the gear. It likely slipped back out after some usage. I will try a new motor in it and see how that works.

 

Try turning the switch on and going to the back of the truck and wiggling the wiper. I get about 6 months out of a wiggle.

 

Turn the switch on and beat on the wiper arm 'till it starts moving. Rear wiper motors are common failures on Expygators.

 

Mine did it not long ago, I just turned the nut that holds the arm on one more turn and it started working again, and that was 6 months ago

 

I used to be able to jiggle mine, and it would start working again. Finally, it totally died and I had the shop put a new motor in it.

Works flawlessly now.