wipers with a mind of their own

Has anybody witnessed a similar situation:

Wipers turned on to maximum speed during heavy rain. After rain
becomes less heavy, switched to lower speed, which works. After
rain stops, tried to turn wipers off. Moved the lever to all five
positions (single pulse, off, intermittent, low speed, high speed)
but wipers keep going at the low speed setting. Get to destination
and turn engine off. Wipers, of course, do stop at this point. Two
hours later, start up car, wipers pulse once and then stop. Ever
since, the switch is working properly again, although only the
single pulse, off, intermittent, and low speed settings have been
used; haven't yet had occasion to try high speed.

What kind of a switch would behave this way?

 

I don't know what kind switch can do this. But I have been having
similar problems. The diagnosis from the Saturn service technician was
that the multifunction lever needs to be replaced.

BTW: this will be the second time it gets replaced. The last time was
in 2001.

Marc
97 SW1

 

The last time it rained heavily enough to warrant using the highest
wiper speed, I was unable to reproduce the earlier problem. For now
the nature of the earlier problem remains a mystery.

 

I went in for the actual repair today and the Saturn cognoscenti changed
their minds: they do not need to replace the multi-function lever,
instead they replaced the faulty wiper motor module.

Module: $395 (Canadian $)
labor: $176

Marc