Advice - Buying wiper blades...

keith1950

Try washing the windscreen and wipers with vinegar.......I usually wait until euro car parts have an offer on and pay about £1.25 per wiper.....at that price I change them once a year just before the car goes for its MOT.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Wipers are extremely overlooked and most common product on a car to skimped on to save money.


I don't even give a cheap blades the thought of putting them on my car, its no good spending a few £ to see nothing but smear on the screen.


bosch, valeo, champions are worth spending out on for quality IMHO.


second thing to do would be to clean the screen, many ways to do it, but I prefer this method.


The aim I go for when cleaning the glass is clean as possible with as smoothe as possible to reduce drag on the blade and cause excess wear on them.


here is a tip. I use the razor blade method https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4WwOrkgXlc
you don't need to buy an expensive clay bar either, buy some well known brand blue-sticky-tac and use that that will pick up allot of dirt its what I use sometimes.


thirdly is screen wash, many people will buy pre mix screen wash, all good an all for ease of life, but more often than not its cheap a nasty and sticks to the glass, and sticks to the blade causing a layer of film build up, the whole idea of screen wash is to lubricate the screen and lift surface dirt so the blade doesn't cause drag smears, if there too much mix or too little, then smears occur over long term build up of road traffic film, I know how big the capacity is in my wash bottle in my car it's 4.2 litres, i'll add 1.1 litres of concentrate screen wash to 3.1 litres of water, and fill the bottle ive not had any trouble with smear doing it that way. many premix bottle of screen wash have either 25% concentrate rest water, IMHO is too much causes bubbles to flow out the nozzle jets.


try giving the blades a good cleaning up, the screen a good cleaning up adjust the ratio of screen wash and see how that goes.

sexyshark

i have the champion ones you get from morrisons petrol station had both on for 18 months now with no problems and they have now reduced in price so i have stocked up at £2.98 each for mine

JustinR1979

I've just got the bosch aero, they're very good.
A claybar and polish of the screen will help them last.

scotsbob

The only thing I would add to the excellent advice from atrixblue would be to use a good quality screen polish and also wipe the blades with it. I use Autoglym but no doubt there will be others that are equally good.

StrongWork

^^Good advice on here so far, especially re cleaning the screen.

Bosch for me, either Aero (retrofit) or the regular Super S depending on the car.

Do NOT buy from Halfords (rip off), Eurocarparts is much cheaper and IME eBay cheaper still.

JustinR1979

Bought a few things from Euro's recently - all cheaper through their ebay store than website

alfantastic

I can't vouch for them, but maybe take a look into buying some blades made from silicone.
Wiper blades are subjected to extremes of temperature, weather and general neglect. Ordinary rubber has a tough time coping with all this, so tends to break down pretty quickly.

I'm no expert, but I have read that silicone wiper blades deal with these extremes far better than ordinary rubber, so might be cost effective in the long run.

Maybe you could be the forum's silicone wiper blade guinea pig

benson1980

PIAA silicone wipers I would strongly recommend. Last ages and don't squeak

[Deleted User]

I got slated on here 6 months ago because I wanted to buy Wilko's cheap £2 wipers but ended up paying £7.99 each at a motor factors as Wilko were out of stock.

The £7.99 motor factors blades haven't lasted any longer than what cheap £2 blades would have.