Back wiper stopped working

Bought new 2004 suburban and had no trouble out of rear windshield wiper, a month ago it stopped working. Replaced motor with new one and it doesn't work. Tried another new one and it didn't work either. When you turn the switch on and you put your finger on motor sticking out of hatch without the blade attached to it you can feel a pulse like it is wanting to turn but it never does. Had this checked out by a GM mechanic and he told me switch was ok, it needed a new motor but due to cost of new GM motor I was going to replace it once I figued out how to get to motor, just didn't want to break plastic molding around hatch?Any ideas?

Hi, mine did the same thing. Problem is at connector at top right side of hatch/body. Check plug where wiring enters the body. Something causes high resistance on the ground pin. You will find melting of the plastic in the connector due to the high resistance. Eventually, the ground to the tailgate is lost and the wiper and defroster will stop working. I had the same problem at the connector under the drivers seat as well that caused the power adjusters and seat warmers to quit working. I love my Suburban, but there seems to be some trouble with connectors.

Thank you, I knew it could not be the motor, I've very upset with what I found on my 2004 sub, I bought it new, with now only 55k on it. 1/11. After cking out everything, I went to the harness, sure enough, ground wire in harness fried, bad design, could of maybe causes a fire or short. Even saw the burgundy wire a got a little warm, assume it's the defroster. Simple fix without replacing hundreds of dollars on harness. Drilled small hole in plastic, pulled thru a new wire of equal size, 3m wire crimps, taped it, and works perfect. I too love my suburban for swim team trips etc. But very poor wire connector design, especially with a lift gate. THey should have a recall, I was amazed. Tom hebzynski, I'm technical and try to fix my owns stuff, all works perfect now, didn't even cut the wires, just bypassed.

Ps tail gate plastic comes off pretty easy too if you have to work on other stuff. Still makes me very unhappy with GM engineer and design for something of this cost and potential magnitude. Took 30 minutes and some patients, not easy spot to work in since they give you no extra wire.

2005 Chevy Suburban - same issue, found the 499 Connector had a bad connection for the ground wire ( black ). This is the connector from the liftgate to the rear body. ( Upper right corner ) Was a bit nervous removing the rubber boot, but it came off and the connector was easily removed. Need to be careful because the rear wiper fluid hose passes thru here as well. It disconnects a few inches behind the connector inside the body opening. I took the connector apart, removed the pins from the connector ( both sides ), cleaned them and then placed back into connector using a un-used pin spot. ( The old location was melted a bit and I dont think I'll be doing anything that requires the position I used ) Put everything back together and it worked first time! The bad ground condition I beleive also contributed to a problem I was having with the rear electrical latch. When unlocking the truck using the key fob, all locks except the rear tailgate would work properly. The tailgate lock would just click and not unlock. This was probably caused by the poor ground condition. I'll know more in the following days, but I think that problem is fixed too now. Many thanks to the previous people posting. I would never had thought to check the connector for this problem. Saved $125 on new wiper motor!

Thanks so much for the answers! My husband was just able to fix our 2003 Suburban that had the same problem. We did have a seized wiper motor as well. So, we got a used wiper motor from a wrecking yard and then fixed the electrical problem by following the steps indicated above. Thanks for posting the photo. My husband said it was so easy once he knew where to look and what to do. The GM dealer was going to charge me $800. It cost us $100.

We have a 2005 Suburban and had a similar problem. The wiper stopped working but was making a dull mechanical noise. In fact we couldn't tell where it was coming from until we "connected the dot" - wiper not working, noise coming from same general area. With the help of this post the fix was easy. There was a bad connection where the wires enter the body of the vehicle. After carefully removing the rubber boot, I pushed on the connection and the wiper started! I cleaned the connection then sprayed some electrical lubricant spray and it was fixed. The most difficult part was figuring out how to put the rubber boot back on. It took a few tries before I realized that the entire wire housing unclips from the vehicle body. Then putting it back on was easy. Thanks for saving me a bundle.

So, I am having the exact same issue with my 2004. I purchased a new wiper motor. I followed all of the above steps and found this: No problem with ground wire. Purple wire a bit burnt looking at connection point between body and rear door hatch. (As stated above by others). Otherwise the connector at the body/door appears to be fine and the voltage I state below are present at this connector as well.

At the plug to the actual motor I find this:
Connected voltmeter to ground.
12 volts found at only 2 wires: Orange and Gray wire.
The green wire and other pink wire with black stripe read 0 volts with switch on or off, it doesn't matter.
The orange wire is 12 volts whether the switch is on or off.
The gray wire shows 12 volts ONLY when the switch is on. (Either in intermittent mode or full time mode it stays the same.

If I plug the connector into either the old motor or the new motor I get NOTHING.
I am stumped.I can't believe the brand new motor is bad also?

Any advice?
Are any of the voltages not accurate?

Looking for help. :)
Bill

It worked! The ground wire connection was fried.

2005 Suburban
Thanks.

Easiest way to check Is to close rear hatch. Then turn and key and rear defrost. Use cigarette lighter plug in rear as power.

Wiper motor quit. Bought one from Amazon it worked for a short time, then quit. Sent it back for another one. New one would not work. Tried to fix the old one. When turned on, it pulses, but does not turn.

I visited a local junkyard, and the proprietor pulled up your site, and had the exact question I asked above, with good guidance on how to fix it. He was nice enough to print it for me. Problem is, the print was blocked by ads, so I cannot read the description of how to fix the problem. If you could please direct me to the question above asked by JACKIED1967, along with the responses, I would greatly appreciate it.