Intro and thanks to all that are reading:

My wife and I have a 98 Hyundai Tiburon (Standard) and it has terrible wiper issues not to mention many other issues. However, before replacing the whole wiper motor I simply want to confirm that it is not something else entirely or a quick fix (god if it were only that easy ;)) Well let me give you a history of the vehicle and its issues before I go over the main problem and the small sub issue.

History:

I just spent $400 bucks on the tires (195/55R15) and since the original owner upgraded the stock (195/60R14) tires my purchase was 200+ the difference it should have cost me. Not to mention I also spent another grand changing the front passenger axel/cv boot (2nd as drivers’ side was changed about 2 years ago). The CV boot was torn on both axels which leads me to believe they must be defective (considering the mileage). Oh and at the same time my control arm went bad which made the car impossible to drive due to the steering wheel aggressively jerking during acceleration and other non-attentive times. The car is only a 98 and other than sucking gas like a sieve it also enjoys brakes and tires (2nd set plus 2 in under 40k).

The Tiburon has aprox 60k miles and I bought it with about 11k in 01/02? So for such a low mileage vehicle it has had quite a bit of issues to say the least. I take very good care of the car with oil changes every 3k and tire checks, fluids, etc every few months. And aprox 40k it needed new plugs and currently the spray for the wipers does not work. This car is not driven hard and is basically only used for travel to/from work, grocery, doctor, movies, etc. Outside the paint has faded beyond belief especially on the door handles, spoiler, wheel covers, bumpers and a few other spots. This was not due to me not washing it but it was like this when I bought it at 11k miles in 01/02 which makes me think the pain is also defective or just bad?

The interior has also had some issues such as all of the plastic screw covers have popped out, even the ones on the passenger side, for no apparent reason and the air vent directional has broken on two on the vents. The plastic covering the clock has separated and is moving around in the dashboard? I can’t figure out why this car has so many issues and it is treated quite well and constantly maintained. And for a car with 140HP it has little to no pep and gets beat off the line in traffic by Ford Focus’s and Toyota Corolla’s? I’m sorry if my topic comes off as part question/part rant but my wife and I are hardworking people who can’t afford anymore major auto issues and we’re quite unpleased with the cars current performance. We take very good care of the car yet it’s not taking care of us.

Main Issue:

The windshield wipers on the Hyundai have never worked quite well but they are far worse today than they were when the car was bought. The problems include: 1. The wipers not fully reaching the area on the driver’s side top left as it doesn’t seem to make it to that corner unless the rain is coming down hard. 2. Sometimes when it is raining hard (as mentioned before) the wipers do reach the top left hand corner but they go too far and actually overextend the corner seemingly going off the left side of the car. I cannot confirm they actually leave the windshield on that corner as it is raining out something fierce but I know that they go farther than they should and actually disappear from the top left hand corner for a second. 3. When the windshield wipers are turned off they do not always go back into the correct “off” position. They never stop in the middle of the windshield but they don’t go all the way down off the windshield unless it is raining cats and dogs and the windshield is very wet. It is almost as if the wiper gets stuck at the very bottom of the windshield as they stay about three inches from the bottom of the windshield. This is very annoying when you are driving as it takes up a large portion of the lower part of the windshield. When you get out the car you can push them back to where they should be. And like I said when it is raining hard or the windshield is very wet they will sometimes go back to their normal, correct, off position.

To try and correct the issues I thought that perhaps the wipers were just dry rotted and needed to be replaced which was why they were not fully reaching all parts of the windshield. I also thought this was attributing to the wiper not correctly settling after being turned off. However after replacing the wipers with brand new ones the issue is still happening, although not quite as bad (the old wipers were dry as ****). I also thought perhaps something is clogging the wipers near the joints so I tried to clear out all leaves, berries, etc from around the joints making sure the wiper could extend without issue. However to no avail nothing seemed to work which is exactly why I am coming to this forum and trying to get some information from people familiar with the car. I thank you for your reading my topic.

Sub Issue:

Also very concerning thing which happened to me while driving the car on one random weekend is when I changed the gear ratio button (I think it says turbo/normal or similar) which the manual describes as supposedly being able to help gear ratio timing and performance. I used to turn it on normal unless I needed the extra boost, although I never really felt one, as the manual tends to describe it’s use for. The serious issue is one time I pressed it and my transmission stopped changing gears altogether! I was stuck in 2nd gear all the time. Even completely stopped the car took forever to get going and then the engine would rev very high (and was very loud) at higher speeds. I tried changing the button back and forth and nothing happened. I then stopped in a parking lot and turned the car off altogether, letting it sit for about 15 mins before starting it again. I then started the car and it began to work like normal again, although to this day (a year later) I have not touched this button since. What caused this issue and will touching the button make it worse? Is this a problem and has it happened to anyone else? What is the button truly for and it the car manual right in describing its use?

Thank you very much for reading my topic and even more for replying,

FifthE1ement :)