Smaller wipers

[sunfire]

I have the Anco winter wipers on the car now. And the Trico winter wipers before. The driver's side Trico started to skip on the forward stroke. Almost like a small zig-zag pattern. But now the new Ancos are starting to do the same thing. Under light and heavy rain conditions.

Every aftermarket wiper manufacturer recommends a 24" wiper on the drivers side. IIRC, before using aftermarket wipers the OEM wipers weren't was wide. The swipe pattern left the aftermarket wipers is a little wider.

It appears to me the 24" wipers are too wide maybe causing the wipers to be imbalanced causing them to skip. Has anyone used a 22" or 23" aftermarket wiper with good results?

[Raddman04]

Thanks for your great question...

I don't use winter blades on my 04 but I have had similar problems with my blades wearing in rain, it happened to me a few times driving in an all day rain on long trips, my blade started to wear on my drivers side window up at about 11 o'clock leaving a black rubber trail/smear about 4 by 1 inches long and my blade started skipping over the buildup making noise even with a pouring rain, I stopped in a gas station and tried to clean it off off with some rain X I had, it helped for a while but then it started building up again...I never had a problem with my passenger side blade or when driving locally in the rain just on extended periods of driving in the rain...Having a 23" blade might just work because I don't think the last inch of 24" blade hits the window angle properly, maybe even a 22" might work without obscuring your vision

[Cyralax]

Wondering the same thing as OP. My wipers on my passenger side always work fine, it's just the driver's side after around 3 months of use tend to miss right in the middle of the blade, and this has been tested with 4 different types of wipers.

[mikered30]

Maybe try a glass polish or carefully use bon ami for glass cleaning.

[BMW Jr.]

Any dings or imperfections in the windshield can cause worn spots on the blades. I agree that polishing can help too, I took a trip to Utah in my last car and strong winds had lightly sand blasted my windshield, I had to polish the windshield to keep from tearing up blades.

[silver04rollas]

I use my stock wipers for the winter and to wipe away snow and clear ice etc. They work well and have no issues,

[hardtopte72]

Make the change to 10th gen OEM wipers and you will never go back.

Unlike the old style wipers the design of these plants the wiper on the windshield. My first set had around 50k on them before they started wiping bad (before that I would be lucky to get 5k out of wipers). And then I simply replaced the 11 dollar inserts and was good as new.

On Scion xD if someone put old style wipers on the highway the car can't wipe away rain. The new design is that much better.

The initial investment is expensive but well worth it.