Once of the worst parts of having to clean the snow and ice off vehicles in the winter is the damage that might occur to windshield wiper blades. Don’t get me wrong – I love winter and I’d rather have it winter all year long, as opposed to all four seasons. A few areas need to be modified though. Perhaps if I had a garage to park the cars in…hmmm.
Anyway, when wiper blades stick to the windshield because of ice, it’s easy to tear them up. When I clear snow from the vehicles, I do so in a semi-aggressive manner. For some odd reason, I think I’m in some sort of a rush. I really need to slow things down because if I’m not careful, I’ll be replacing very expensive wiper blades once per year. I really don’t want to do that.
Take a look at what I’m referring to.
I’m sure we’ve all seen something like this before.
Now, in all fairness, I may not have even done this. I don’t know how old this blade is. The truck is a 2008 and I bought it in 2013. I never put new blades on it. For all I know, this thing is nine years old. In that case, it probably needed new wipers anyway.
Which brings me to the exciting part of this post – my new Bosch Icon wiper blades. You’ve got to see these things. They’re like magic. No more do I have those low-end ANCO wiper blades. I’ve graduated to what we have on the other car – real blades. These are one piece units that are super simple to install.
When I was ordering them, I completely forgot that cars sometimes use different sizes for the different sides of the windshield. I always thought that wiper blades came in packs of two. I guess not. Nowadays, they come as individual units because of length and sometimes they’re marked “A” or “B.” The A version has a regular curve to the blade while the B version has one that’s more severe. That more “curved” blade is supposed to compensate for the extra curve of the edge of the passenger side glass. In the case of my truck, the windshield was fairly evenly curved, so I didn’t need to get a B version. I stuck with two identical 22A blades. Luckily, they fit perfectly (they should because I measured the old ones 95 times).
Now, when it comes to our car, one blade is 24 inches and the other is 20. That’s pretty weird but it’s makes the case for packaging wiper blades individually.
The packaging for these blades is extensive. First, they come in a cardboard container. Then, inside of that container is a plastic sleeve that the blade rests in. I can only imagine this this is so the actual edge doesn’t bend and stay bent during storage.
To remove the old blades, I had to hold down a small tab and pull the blade away from the end of the wiper arm. The passenger (torn) one was already loose, so it didn’t take much effort. The driver’s side took a bit more effort. These new Bosch blades are set up differently. They have small covers that pop up and that the arm slides through. Take a look at these photos.
Here’s me pushing the wiper arm through the attachment part of the blade.
Once I secured the arm to the attachment area, I simply snapped the cover shut. I did this twice, once for each side, and then took a last photo.
Of course I had to try them out. I used the cleaner liquid to wet the windshield and then gave the new blades a go. Perfect. Now I can sleep at night.
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