Windscreen wipers - stupid question

countrygirl27

The rubber part of my windscreen wiper has torn off. This is my stupid question - can you just buy the rubber part or do you always have to buy the blade?

I was thinking I could maybe slide a new rubber into the existing blade?

The blades cost £10 ish but it seems daft to buy all that when its only the rubber thats wrong.

Ta.

marlot

You can usually buy either, depending on the precise model.

The rubber on its own is usually called a refill.

keith1950

Hi, depends on the make of car but recently I purchased two pairs of blade+rubbers from www.eurocarparts.co.uk for a total price of £4 and there was free delivery. They were much better quality than I had expected. I think the make was 'Kehren'

vikingaero

You can buy just the rubber at places like Wilkinson or your local motor factors. One place to avoid is Halfords where it's phenomenally expensive for rubber blades or whole wipers.

I buy my wipers from here:

http://www.wiperblades.co.uk/

roddydogs

Wilkos dont do rubber infills, the whole blades are only £1.25 anyway.

DCFC79

Yes ive seen just the rubber bit on sale, looks easy enough to fit

petrolhead69

You can buy just the rubber, but at the price of a new blade why? if the rubber has torn it's probaly old, and so is the rest of the blade. the blade has several pivot points on it to keep all the blade against the glass with the right pressure at all times, these wear and seize up too, and the plastic bits become brittle with age too. If the plastic breaks the wiper arm can scratch the screen, if the pivots seize part of the screen will be missed, if you fit the refill wrong and it comes out the wiper will scratch the screen. You can buy decent Champion blades for £2.30 each with new mounting clips, is it worth risking scratcing the glass, or having poor wiper performance for £4.60?

When buying blades, look at the side of the rubber, some have a slight grey sheen to them, thats some sort of graphite coating, in my experience the ones that have that last a lot longer and smear less.

DCFC79

petrolhead69 wrote: »

You can buy just the rubber, but at the price of a new blade why? if the rubber has torn it's probaly old, and so is the rest of the blade. the blade has several pivot points on it to keep all the blade against the glass with the right pressure at all times, these wear and seize up too, and the plastic bits become brittle with age too. If the plastic breaks the wiper arm can scratch the screen, if the pivots seize part of the screen will be missed, if you fit the refill wrong and it comes out the wiper will scratch the screen. You can buy decent Champion blades for £2.30 each with new mounting clips, is it worth risking scratcing the glass, or having poor wiper performance for £4.60?

When buying blades, look at the side of the rubber, some have a slight grey sheen to them, thats some sort of graphite coating, in my experience the ones that have that last a lot longer and smear less.

i thought you could just replace the rubber part, shows what i know

Inactive

Just buy some new full blades, get Bosch from a decent eBay seller, they will last a lot longer than cheap and nasty ones, they will also do a far better job of keeping your screen clear.

Change them in seconds.

goldspanners

i wouldn't mess about with refills either. they won't last as long as a new set of half decent blades. get a set of bosch blades. but as has been said don't buy them from halfords unless you can get a hold of a trade card. buying them online should be the cheapest option.

countrygirl27

Thanks for all the advice I have managed to buy and fit myself front ones incuding the blade for £3.

But now I need to fix the rear one, mine looks very small and am having trouble finding one. Its for a fiat punto 2001, any ideas?