After a rain last night, i didn't shiut the wipers, just the car. next morning there was 6" of snow. when i started the car, the wipers wanted to start with th heavy snow. now the intermident won't work and when you stop them after turning on hi or low, which works, they immediately stop & do not finsih the cycle. what can i do?

you may want to go to a parts place and have them plug one of those meters for a check engine light in the port and see if a code will come up .

Old new beetle VW harness has contact resistance problems(vibration of wires) and needs to be recrimped the long wires(vibration can be stopped by silicone rubber anchoring). Cold weather make battery voltages low and needs recharged with handbrake on(headlamps off) 10 minutes warming engine up the whole winter.

You need to provide more info. \
When you tried starting the car did the starter motor turn over as normal
OR
when you turned the key to start the engine did the starter motor not turn over at all or only very slowly?

the heater coil is blocked up or hose is frozen

The windshield wiper circuit has an circuit breaker in it, under heavy load this breaker trips to protect the wiper motor, when the motor cools, the breaker resets automatically restoring proper wiper action.

This could also be a bad coil.

you mite have to replace the fan or have some one check alll the fuse first be for you get a new one

It sounds like you live in a climate were snow and ice occurs. If so a lot of people leave their wipers on upon shutting off their cars. If you happen to do that and the windsheild had moister on it or if the snow starter falling while your vehicle was still warm it will freeze. The larger the snow amount the stronger the force will be if you start your vehicle up the next morning with your wipers buried in frozen ice & snow. Since the wipers were not shut off the wiper motor will run and the wiper blades will not. This will strip the linkage the wiper arms press onto leaving you with out working windsheild wipers

have you checked the transmission fluid level?
what exactly happens when you give it gas to move,and what happens in reverse.

it could be an intermitant problem . most coman is the distributor and wires