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Rain-Sense Nonsense - 2016 Honda Civic Long-Term Road Test
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Rain-Sense Nonsense - 2016 Honda Civic Long-Term Road Test
Our 2016 Honda Civic Touring has rain-sensing wipers, but they don't work because the sensor wasn't properly seated when the windshield was replaced.
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As for the rain-sensing wipers, I never knew how they worked. Now that I do, I'll remember not to get them on my next car.
As for the failure of the automatic wipers, add that to the list of things I won't use, like automatic high beams and non-defeatable adaptive cruise control. They will go wrong and/or fail to operate as expected.
Ah....raindrops? turn on the wipers! Getting dark? Takes less than two seconds to turn on the lights!
Never thought I would see things like this on a Civic!
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I don't "hate" them I just they are a silly option but that's me.
But I never thought the day would come when a person could spend close to 30K on a Civic!
Both of our cars have auto on headlights that don't bother coming on until it is nearly totally dark so I don't use that function either. Also I like to have them on in lousy weather which we get a lot of here.
If you have a car with adjustable-sweep intermittent wipers, the rain sensor does the adjusting for you.
Good ones (like on BMW) work really, really well. You turn on your intermittent wipers, then forget about it.
I don't use auto-headlights, either, though my car is equipped with them. But, headlights don't require multiple adjustments, either. I've got a coffee maker that automatically turns off after 90 minutes. I like that, too.
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My car has LED DRLs, which are bright enough for daytime driving. The auto lights work well, coming on at appropriate times and also if the wipers are on steady.
One evening I was driving our Avalon with the auto headlights turned on. I wanted to see just how dark it had to get before they engaged. I waited and waited as it got darker and darker. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and as I reached for the switch they came on. I don't know if there is a way to adjust the interval or not but I don't care. I am still physically able to grab my turn signal stalk and give it a twist!
That said, we're now on the topic of the rain-sensing wipers (RSWs), so I guess I may as well speak to it. I'd have to say that it's the only thing about my 2016 Touring that I find truly disappointing. I made the same bad assumption that some others did here... thinking that the RSWs augmented the standard intermittent wipers rather than replaced them. Sometimes they work just fine, particularly if the rainfall is pretty constant. But they seem to get confused when you have drizzle with occasional bursts of heavier rain. When the heavier rain comes, the system acts as if it doesn't notice that the rain increased, so I have to adjust them so that they begin to wipe quickly enough. Other times, they'll suddenly start wiping at high speed during very light rain, again requiring an adjustment to get an appropriate speed.
So basically, I seem to have to adjust the RSWs pretty much as often as I had to adjust standard intermittent wipers, since the former doesn't seem too adept at adjusting to changes in how heavy the rainfall is. Which kind of defeats the purpose. When they work correctly, I consider them to be a convenience, but that happens too infrequently. Guess I'll mention it to the techs the next time I go in to check if mine are defective. If they aren't, Honda needs to improve the technology considerably.
As for automatic headlights, I just leave them on AUTO and forget them. They come on when they need to be on, turn off when they need to turn off. The only time I need to turn them on manually is in fog. So as long as they work well, I'm perfectly happy to let them do their thing.
BTW, I have rain sensing wipers on my BMW and I don't particularly like them. Yes, they work, but during light rain I end up having to fiddle with them more than with the intermittent wiper knob on my other vehicle.
Now let me tell you one more thing. It sucks when you have to learn something the hard way but learning from a mistake is part of life. When we don't tolerate that happening the absolute worst thing that can come from it is the person quits and then we will have to go through the whole routine again with the next person that chooses to try. If we again fail to allow them to sometimes fail and learn from it, then they aren't the problem.