I need to get new wiper blade refills and I have no idea what to buy. I've gone through this on three different cars with who knows how many brands and everything I buy seems to suck. What kind should I buy? Cheap is good but not as important as them working well. I especially don't want any more that leave big streaks on my windshield and leave me blinded by passing cars at night even when I havn't used my wipers for weeks.

Stores I have available are Wal-mart, Autozone, O'reily, Advanced Auto, and probably some others I'm not thinking of.

Thank you for any help!

I've always had good luck with Trico blades. You can get them just about anywhere.

And if you haven't used your wipers in a couple of weeks the rubber sometimes gets a "film" on it. Try wiping them down with some wiper fluid or rubbing alcohol on a paper towel. You'd be surprised how much black gunk you'll get off of them and how much better they'll work.

Usually all the retail stores sell the same stuff in wipers but get a recommendation from a friend or ask at one of the auto parts stores. To me, wipers are pretty much the same but my driving conditions could be a lot different than yours too. Autozone has helped me on more than one ocassion. Try it!

I think GM usually buys Trico stuff, but have seen other brands used on new cars. There are a coupla techniques for making the wipers work. Try using an auto paint buffer and something similar to McGuires paint polish on the windshield. This is a kind of rubbing compound that is really good for removing the film that gets on windshields and causes streaks and blade chatter. Also, try using lighter fluid on the wiper refils to remove any gums and other gunk that accumulates.

Any of the silicone windshield treatments work great--rain water just blows right off.

Regularly buffing the windshield keeps the glass shiny and clean by removing lots of small abrasions and micro-scratches. Glass is very soft and fragile, it gets dirty and scratched very easily.

I already use rainex on my windshield to keep the rain off, and I think I'm goign to give trico wipers a try. I'm rather unsure about using an auto paint buffer on the windshield, though. I wouldn't even know how to use it.

It's easy to use a paint buffer. Been using one for years. A paint buffer puts less strain on the paint than using a hand, cloth and wax, becuz of the much larger surface area. In fact, to get bug squashes off the nose, must hand rub, becuz can't put enough pressure on the buffer to get the job done.

Sue beat me to the punch with the rubbing alcohol suggestion. (I decided once to use the rubbing alcohol handiwipe that was included with the wiper blade refill packaging instead of just tossing it. What do ya know, there's a reason they included it with the packaging.) Charles has a good suggestion, too. I use an orbital buffer on my vehicles. It's darn near impossible to hurt your paint with an orbital if you keep the pad clean. (One of these days, I'm gonna buy a gen-u-wine polisher and learn how to use it.)

Oh, and I put Anco blades on mine but she hasn't seen rain since they went on. I've always had good experiences with Anco on my other cars though.

Will rubbing alcohol get the streaks off of my windshield or is that a job for the buffer?

It depends if the streaks are coatings of some kind or if they're gouges. Alcohol works real well to remove oily residues. If you have gouges or scratches, there's a boating product out there called Gel Gloss. That works real well for polishing scratches out of glass.

You can try the rubbing alcohol. Or you can try amonia cut with a little water, apple cider vinegar or I know this will sound strange, but good old Coke Cola. Just don't get any of the Coke on your paint. It'll do weird things to it.

One of my pet peeves is a dirty windshield, or streaked windshield, and non-working wiper blades. It gets on my nerves. I have tried just about every kind of wiper there is, including the Bosch high dollar wiper blades, and they never seem to last very long. I recently bought a set of wiper blades for my Suburban that work great. I really like them, and they seem to be holding up pretty good. I had noticed that no matter how new the wiper blades work, the first snow and ice that got on them, they would start streaking or only half wiping the windshield. This set that is on my Suburban now have teflon on them, and seem to work great. I have been through one snow storm, and one ice storm with them, and they still wipe the entire windshield with no streaks. Plus plenty of rain and such. But like I said earlier, a typical wiper blade that I would use before, couldn't make it through one snow or ice storm without streaking on the windshield and making it almost impossible to see. I can't remember the brand name, only that I got them at Advance Auto, and they said that they had teflon on them or in them or something like that. You may want to try them if it get on your nerves as much as a dirty windshield gets on mine.

There is also another stuff for polishing glass and it is called Nitrous Oxide.

Nope, that's not it...it's called "Cerium Oxide". This can be mean stuff. It is used with a buffer and it can polish, smooth and clean glass depending on how much is used and for how long--used long enough, it will probably polish the glass right thru to the inside.

I use a random orbital buffer with ordinary car rubbing compound (McGuires) and over the years it has kept the glass almost like new. In time it will get rid of minor abrasions such as windshield wiper marks.

Also TR3 Resin Glaze works well. There are probably a bunch of products that will do the same job.

Giving the wondshield and glass a good buff really makes them stand out at the local car shows, too!

Sue,

didnt you watch the mythbusters episode where they tested the Cole myth........The only thing it did was remove rust, it didnt eat paint or any of that other stuff people think it does....

It doesn't? Tell that to a car I once owned then. I got some on the hood and it took the wax right off, all of it, right down to the paint. Of course that was several years ago.

Maybe that was the "New" coke.

I remember those days, I took the Pepsi challenge at I-70 Speedway in Odessa, MO.........Man I feel old!

Charles, what kind of buffer do you have? The one that I have probably is stronger then rubbing by hand, if you turn the air valve up to the full power level. I have an Ingersoll Rand air buffer, can't remember the model number, but it has the V-shaped hand grips, and it is a great buffer. I usually have it's valve turned about half open or 3/4 open, and it will buff the heck out of a car at that level. Oh, and the bonnet it uses is a plastic backed bonnet, that is held on by a nut in the middle of it. And no, the bonnet is thick enough, and the nut is recessed enough that it won't touch the car, and the bonnet is thick enough that the plastic won't hurt anything either. You definitely couldn't use a tie on bonnet on this thing, becasue the backing plate for the bonnet is a thick hard plastic as well. The thing works like a charm though, and the only place you can get the bonnets for it is either online or at a paint supply store. The regular electric ones that you can buy at the auto parts stores, really don't have enough power to buff out a fresh paint job, and usually are not multi speed units either.

Thats a different kind of buffer. Charles is refering to a random orbital buffer. It's almost like a big vibrator and does not spin fast in a circle. The one you have will burn the paint plum off of the car if you dont know how to use it. You can get a ROB at Wal Mart for around $20 for the 10" or you can get a single hand held buffer to. I have the larger of the two,but I think the small one would be easier to use maybe. Wax you car with it and it will stay slick feeling for weeks.

I replaced the blades in my car one time. A few months later they were worn out so I went to GM and bought new arm assemblies for both sides. Cost about $50 but they are new (looking to) and have been good for a few years now. Then again,I dont drive the car in the rain either

I've got both the large and small orbital buffers. It's nice to have both. The small one comes in handy for the side-view mirrors and other tight spots. Like Fireduck said though, the orbitals don't have what it takes to buff out a fresh paint job. I did some touch up on my Alero and it took forever to get rid of the haze even with polishing compound. Like I said earlier, you'd have to really screw up to burn your paint waxing with an orbital.

Yup, I've got a Chamberlain, random orbital buffer with about a 10.5 inch pad. It rotates slowly--maybe less than a couple thousand rpm if even that. Perfect for polishing good paint and buffing it to a high gloss. It won't do a good job cutting orange peel, would take forever--probably burn out the motor. But my paint has an unreal wet look to it from constant buffing with McGuire's Gold.

Ok, just wondering. I was figuring it was something like that. And yes, if I turned my buffer up to run higher rpms, it could burn through the paint with no problems. But, it can buff the heck out of a paint job. It will shine the mess out of a completed paint job, and will buff the heck out of a fresh paint job. The thing cost us a pretty penny, but it was well worth it.