Originally Posted by tom frost

Thanks Pelican.

Well... I finally got the time to pull the shroud assembly from the steering coulumn to get a better look at things in an attempt to trace out the switch to whatever electrical component is next in line.

There is a black box at the base of the switch stem. There is a white-ish (natural) plastic Molex-type female connector that plugs into the back of that black box.

In the process of troubleshooting, I placed the switch in the "high"position (and nothing happened). I then applied some upward pressure to the connector at the point where the wires enter it, and the wipers came on!

So I removed the connector, and checked the contacts/ wires to see if there was a visible problem. I couldn't see any. There was no visible corrosion, and no looseness in the wire terminations. I used a small screwdriver to bend the contact points (on the mating side of the connector) up in case they had relaxed and needed a little more spring to form a solid connection. When I plugged the connector back in and tried it, it worked on "high", but the wipers movement was quite slow and weak. After testing in the other switch positions ("high" was the only position that worked) I went back to the "high" position, and it no longer worked. I am now convinced that the problem exists inside the black box at the base of the switch stem. Probably in the male termination points for the Molex connector.

In a quick search for replacement parts, I found that the black box is part of the wiper switch assembly. I am not thrilled about it, but it looks like replacement is the route to take. It looks like I will have to strip down the steering column a good deal further than I already have in order to replace the switch.

I am a little unclear as to how realistic it is for me to do this myself, considering the presence of the Airbag. If anyone has any advice I'm all ears.

The main reason I am posting this somewhat lengthy description of my process is to include in this thread (for potential future seekers) my observation that:

On the 2000 Jeep Cherokee Sport, the intermittent wiper module seems to have changed locations from a seperate unit velcroed under the steering column to being included in a box at the base of the switch itself.


I did not find any reference to this in any google searches I did, and barely any specific results for the 2000 Cherokee Sport. If anyone can confirm or deny the accuracy of this information, I would appreciate it, however I feel fairly confident that this is correct.

Thanks for looking everybody.