Rear wiper problem
 

Hi all, I just entered the Honda world on Monday by picking up a gently used 1998 CR-V EX.

I've been doing lots of maintenance checks on it, and fixing little things that need attention, and I found a problem with my rear wiper.

The rear wiper seems to work fine when I squirt the washer on it, but if I just turn it on, it doesn't do anything.

Does the rear wiper only work normally if the front wipers are on too? I had the front wipers off because I only needed to clear the rear window at the time.

I just wanted to find out if any of you have found any common issues with those, or if I'm missing something obvious before I went nuts with electrical diagnosis.

Update:
 

I ended up playing with the wiper a few times, and it seemed like it was just a stuck switch. Every time I tried it one more setting would become functional. Eventually, I got them all to work.

I've seen this sort of thing on bicycle gear shifters, where not using it will cause it the stop functioning because of the lube inside drying up, but I never expected to see that in an electrical switch.

Anyway, I just switched it on and off until it worked again. Seems weird, but that's how it went.