As I was driving home just now there was a very sudden downpour (I got soaked running ten feet from my car to my door, its raining THAT hard) so I was running my windshield wipers between the highest level and second to highest level, and while on the second highest level fairly close to my house they suddenly stopped working. Luckily I was going at a relatively low speed (about 35 mph) but I had just been doing 80 on a highway moments before that, after they stopped I was COMPLETELY blinded, I'm extremely lucky. I just did a quick search, I hear of wiper transmissions breaking and such, don't know what any of that stuff is. Wipers worked perfectly before this. My neighbor mentioned his car had the same problem a few weeks after he bought it new, stopped suddenly during rainstorm, but he said the problem was electrical.

Also, about 20 minutes before the wipers stopped (it hadn't started raining yet) I got the "parking light" check control message while losing right parking lights, instrument cluster, engine compartment light. Replaced fuse and all lights were fine and everything back to normal, I highly doubt it but could this be related? Neighbor said 12 years ago in his 530i some module had to be replaced following the problem... any ideas?! sorry for the rambling i've had too much caffeine