Taffy, what are the gauge symptoms when the wiper motor switch is the component at fault?
Right well from my own experience on my own Mini, which is a 1990 Mainstream Mini Cooper that has the standard rev counter (which are of course Nippon Seiki gauges). When my wipers stopped parking themselves, some time after during a heavy rain shower my main fuse blew (25amp/3rd fuse down which controls the Heater Blower Motor, Windscreen Wipers, Washer Motor & Instruments) and it continued to blow whenever I switched on the ignition even though I replaced that fuse several times.
Anyway by order of elimination, my late Dad (who was completely baffled, even though he was an electrician) disconnected the rev counter spade terminal and so the fuse then stopped blowing but I had to live without a working rev counter for a few years.
Then one day I decided to replace my faulty wiper motor park-switch and I was happy to have self parking wipers again. Then I noticed my rev counter blip on starting up my car and so even though I'd gone through hundreds of fuses without any luck, I reconnected the rev counter spade terminal on to my fuse box and hey presto my rev counter started working good as new again.
But on a 1990's Mini model a family member recently owned that wasn't equipped with a rev counter as standard (but yes again the Nippon Seiki gauges). When the wipers stopped parking themselves, soon afterwards the fuel gauge had a habit of reading full even though it wasn't.
As an experiment and because I suspected the park-switch to be the cause of the problem, when I sprayed WD40 on the rear of the wiper motor (at the park-switch) the fuel gauge would then read correctly for a short time, like a few days. Then it would start misreading and reading full again, but more WD40 again temporarily corrected the issue.
Replacing the wiper motor park-switch was the permanent fix of course. Plus the wipers started parking themselves again.
Someone on a local (to me) Mini Forum which I no longer use tried to make out I was making this stuff up and that the park-switch couldn't possibly affect the gauges. But naturally it can since it runs on the same circuit.
