How to Replace Wiper Motor 2005-16 Toyota RAV4

What's up, guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video, I'm going to show you how to replace the wiper motor on this 2010 Toyota Rav4. If you need parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1aauto.com.

All right. We want to take this cover off the arm. We're just going to use a straight blade screwdriver or a pocket screwdriver. Just take that cover off right there or I ,could use a pick as well. All right. Now I'm going to take a 14-millimeter socket, extension, and ratchet. Take this nut off. You can hold the arm so you don't put too much tension on the actual wiper transmission. There you go.

It's still on there pretty good. Take that nut off. All right. Before I take the arm off, I'm actually just going to mark where the wiper arm is. You could make a mark right here or even right there or on the other side, and just keep in mind so that you can put the wiper back where it was when you're done. Now you can use a special tool to remove these arms. What I'm going to do is just grab it, though, and just rock it back and forth. That loosens it up. And just grab the arm and slide it off. And then you can do the same with the other side.

So there's some push pins on this side. There's one on the other side as well. You can take a trim tool, try to remove this. A lot of times these break, so you can try to pull them out. Sometimes it might be easier if you use two trim tools, put one on each side. And this one was pretty much broken anyway, so what I'm going to do is cut it off. I'm just going to use some side cutters. Cut it, and we'll just have to replace this one. But if you can salvage it, then that would be good. So do the same on the other side.

All right. So this panel is snapped in right here. You can feel underneath where you can find the clips, or you can see a little button right there. That's where the clip is. There's a clip right there. So you just slide underneath here. You can use a trim tool and unsnap it. There's another one over here and over here, just like that. All right. This rubber piece right here, it'll just slide out like that. If we can slide it off completely, it just clips in up there. You can either slide it out of this panel here or just slide it off up top, either way. Then I'll do the same for this side. Just slide that up. And I can just grab this panel and just slide it towards the front of the vehicle. Slide it up. Now I'm going to take these two bolts out and use a 10-millimeter socket and an electric ratchet. If you don't have an electric one, you can just use the regular one.

Same on this side. Just grab this whole wiper transmission. And then you're going to lift it up, and you're going to slide it towards the passenger side. There's this little alignment mark right there that lines up with that slot. Now we can access the plugs. Just disconnect the connector right here, just like that. And there is, where the wire is attached to this, a retainer. So we'll just grab our trim tool, get underneath here, just pry up. Just like that, and there you go.

All right, so before I take the wiper motor off the transmission, what I'm going to do is just take a felt tip marker. I'm just going to mark the position of this arm because I want to put that back on the same way that it came off. I'm just going to take an adjustable wrench, line it up on this arm, and then I can take a 12-millimeter socket, extension, and a ratchet, loosen up this nut. Once that's loose, take the nut off, just like that. Now we can take a pry bar. We'll just get underneath here, pry up on that arm once it's loose, pop it up, slip it out of the way. Now I'm going to take a 10-millimeter socket and a ratchet and take these three bolts up. You could also use a Phillips-head screwdriver. There you go. Disconnect the motor from the transmission.

Okay. Now if you're replacing the motor, you're not sure whether the motors in the right position for installing this. So if you install this without knowing, you install this arm and it's in the wrong spot, the wipers are going to do funny things. They're going to go down instead of up, which isn't good. So let's time this motor so that it's ready to install to the transmission. So what I'm going to do is just plug this back into the vehicle. Just like that. I'm going to cycle the key on, and we're going to cycle this motor one time and then shut the key off and disconnected. Okay. So it turned once. Now keep an eye on it when you go to turn the key off, make sure it doesn't turn again. So if it turned again, now it shut off. Now I can turn the key off. Now the motor is in the park position. Disconnect the connector. So now we can line this up. So that, take these bolts, and get these bolts started. Now take 10-millimeter socket and a ratchet. Snug these up.

Now we want to reattach this arm. And where we marked it, we want to get that in that same position where we marked it. Right there. Now if you're replacing the transmission, you just want to hold up the old transmission up to the new one and try to get a general idea of where it was. Hopefully you'll be close enough. They don't make any marks to tell you where this goes, but generally, if you get it in that location, it should be good. Take my adjustable wrench. Take the 12-millimeter socket, extension and ratchet, and snug up this nut. That's good.

Now we can reinstall this in the vehicle. Now we want to connect the electrical connector. You want to make sure that the key is off because you don't want to plug this in and then have the wiper transmission spin. And keep in mind, it's probably a good idea to just keep your fingers out of that area, just in case. Plug that in, put this wiring harness retainer up, lock it in place, and we want to slide this little grommet back into that slot right there. Take the two bolts, get one started there, get one started here. And take that 10-millimeter socket and ratchet and tighten these two bolts up.

Now, I always like to double-check just to make sure everything's lined up, so I'll turn the key on again and turn the wipers on just make sure everything works. Just make sure you keep your fingers clear. You don't want to put your fingers in there, but it looks like everything's lined up right. As you can see, where the wiper arms mount to the transmission, they go one direction and then they go back to the other direction. So they're going up and then back down, which is good. Now with it down, make sure you turn the key off before they turn on again.

All right. Now just take the cover and we're going to slide it in on the back. And it's this piece right here that's going to slip underneath the windshield, just like that, kind of angle it down a little bit. Get that all underneath up top. We can line these pins up and push it back down. We're going to reinstall these rubber pieces on the sides. Slide it into the cowl cover first. And then this will slide in underneath the front fender, just like that. I'll do the same for the other side. All right, now I'm just going to take a pocket screwdriver and push the old push-pin out that I had to cut. And it comes out underneath if you can grab the other piece. And I'll do the same for this side.

Now I've got some new push-pins, so I'm going to put these in. We sell a bunch of different kits that have new push-pins for your vehicle, so check it out at 1aauto.com. Push those in. I'll do the same on the other side. All right. Take the wiper arm, slide it back in position. Make sure you put it where you marked it on the windshield. If you marked it, take and install the nut. I like to just push down on the arm a little bit, just to get that to line up right. Take the 14-millimeter socket, extension, and a ratchet, and we'll just snug this up. That's good. Take the cap, line it up, and lock it down. And you do the same with the other one.

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