You've found one that was competent to fix anything? Stay away from those places!
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14 years ago
Why Do Auto Repair Shops ...
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14 years ago
The rubbers dry out. Ozone gets them. They get hard.The edge wears off. They generally loose their effectiveness with either age OR use. Generally not good for much more than a year or two at the most.
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14 years ago
Ya know how some people hate to turn off the car while the wipers are running or not in their parked position? About half of the time I do it on purpose, while they are on there way up. This keeps the rubber so it can "flip flop" as they change direction. When they stop "flip flopping" you often get that awful chatter as they go up. Sometimes when it's not raining if I notice the wipers are flipped on there return to home position, I'll lift them up and..... Flop them! I'm sure this all sounds silly, but I'm serious!
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14 years ago
OK, this is a true story. Many moons ago my girlfriend was driving when we hit some really heavy rain. She had the wipers on slow. It rained harder yet. Still, even though we could hardly see, she left them on slow. I couldn't take it anymore and asked why she won't turn the wipers on high? And I swear this is true....
she replied, "Then what will I do if it rains even harder?"
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14 years ago
That, and cleaning them once in a while keeps them working for years.
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14 years ago
Have you ever tried just cleaning them? Makes all the difference.
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14 years ago
If you clean them once in a while, they last several years. At least they do here in Seattle.
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14 years ago
Yeah, but who wants to replace em when it's raining, and if it aint raining, who cares?
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14 years ago
"Alim Nassor 1" wrote
Borrowed the company pickup one day and it started to rain. First I had to find a place selling blades, then find a bridge to park under so I could see what I was doing. What a mess.
Idiots let them go until they don't work any more. At the first sign of less than perfect wiping, mine get changed. We're taling 20 bucks or less every two years.
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14 years ago
Not to be flip, but I'm wondering if that technique is a flop?
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14 years ago
No. Flipping is not flopping!
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14 years ago
They'll tear holes in your CV joint boots and tell you, "We fix those."
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14 years ago
I bet that at 4 years they are shot, but it is easy enough to see for yourself. Look at a new wiper blade from the side. The corners are sharp and the profile is symmetrical.
Now look at your 4 year old blades. From sitting compressed for 4 years they will have taken a set and this prevents them from working properly.
Rain or not they are only good for about a year.
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14 years ago
Had my car in a tire shop and they pointed out a striped lug stud. Said they had are relationship with a midas brake shop and they'd replace it free. Took the car there (mistake!) and they chewed the end off my axle. It has a one time crimped nut, it has a part on the nut that is hit with a hammer to crimp it. It is a one time part. Midas tried to reuse it and chewed the end off the axle trying. Then they tried to say "it was like that when we started". Had to take them to small claims court. It was weird calling road side emergency service to have the car towed *away* from a repair shop.
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14 years ago
Didn't mean to create a flap about the flip that was flopping. I guess I flupped up?
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14 years ago
re: "OK, this is a true story."
Wiper story time? OK...
A buddy and I flew from NYC to Cleveland to pick up an AMC Javelin from my buddy's brother. It poured almost all the way home, a 10 plus hour drive in a truly POS car.
Back in those days, AMC wipers ran off of the engine vacuum and were controlled by a cabled lever that opened a valve.
Less than halfway home the valve broke in such a manner that the wipers would only go up when you turned them on and down when you turned them off.
After a few hours of the passenger flipping the lever up and down, the cable broke and the wipers stayed in the up position. We pulled over under a bridge and found that if we manually pulled them down, they would go back up by themselves.
We managed to find a piece of wire in the trunk that was barely long enough to allow the passenger to let the wipers go up and then pull them back down. By barely long enough, I mean that our hand would have to go outside the window, into the cold rain, just a little bit to get the wipers to go up. We spent hours letting the wipers go up, and pulling them back down, letting them go up and pulling them back down over and over and over again.
We ended up wearing socks on our hands to keep them warm and were covered with road spray and dirt by the time we made it back to NY.
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14 years ago
in my experience yes, they get hard and then won't flip over. The new silicone blades work great for low mileage cars as they don't do this. I still have ones (PIAA brand - usually wouldn't consider their products because they are best known for ricer lights, but their wipers are actually good) on my 944 that I put on over xmas break either 2 or 3 years ago. Now the ones on my company car, even the good silicone ones, seem to last a year and a half tops before the edges are literally worn out and they start to smear, but at least they are still supple unlike the parts store ones.
nate
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14 years ago
I have investigated this for my old Studebaker which uses 12" Trico blades (shared with pre-63 Corvette) and the only thing that I've found that will work are the expen$ive repro blades sold for Corvette enthusiasts. I would really like to use silicone inserts but the profile of the "claws" of the blade is different, and attempting to trim to fit with a razor blade did not work. Now maybe if I had a jig to trim them things would be different.
nate
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14 years ago
re: "Now maybe if I had a jig to trim them things would be different. "
When I think of a jig I think of all the one's I've made for various woodworking and/or metal work projects. The few hours I spend making a jig saves me countless hours of layout and measuring when performing the same task over and over again.
I don't know exactly what type of "timming" you have to do, but couldn't you spend a few hours making a jig that you could then use forever?
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14 years ago
possibly. the problem is that a) I haven't a clue how to make a jig to do what I need it to do and b) $20 every couple of years for some overpriced but "show correct" wiper inserts really aren't the end of the world.
I *could* just replace the blades with new aftermarket ones and sidestep the problem, but I like the look of the old, low-profile polished stainless blades.
I don't have a good profile pic of old and new refills handy, but they're significantly different, with the new style being much larger. If you go to Corvette Central and search for a '62 wiper blade that's exactly what I'm using on my '55 Studebaker. (it was actually used 56-64, but refills are available for those, and they're also 12" long unlike the original '55 blades which were 11" and are stashed away for safe keeping if I ever decide to restore the car to show correctness, which will likely never happen.)
nate