Wiper Blade Replacement

They are made by Valeo. I believe that they are the "Ultimate" model. Not cheap anywhere. Shop around. Did they get damaged?

Haven't seen the Avalon wipers yet. But do they look like:

If so, the Bosch Icon (or similar "bracketless" wipers from other companies) you just replace the whole wiper blade (because it doesn't have the usual bracket). Autozone had run a special a short while ago, about $17 and IIRC 50% the second one. Something like that.

find any reference to replacement of the wiper blades. They look a bit different then what I've seen before--have rubber tips on each end of the blade that look as if they are meant to come off which would then allow replacement of the inserts. Anyone have the answer?

Is it possible to pull out the rubber and push in new rubber, as was recommended by Toyota for its older wipers?

I have a pair of blades that are over a decade old. They don't wipe well, but they don't rot from the sun and ozone.

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Are you sure you need blades? They could just be full of crud from the road, and wiping them down with alcohol swabs will bring them back to life.

For the old bracket blades yes, but for the new "bracketless" I don't know if they'll take refills. Probably call up Toyota parts dept.

In fact, refills are getting harder to find for the traditional blades except at the dealer. Aftermarkets are pretty much all blade assemblies now. These refills used to be all over the place and cheap too.

2002 Tacoma: $18 twice a year. Is that so much to pay for being able to see out the friggin' windows so you don't drive like a fool? And sometimes, you don't even need to spend the money at all. Fold a gauze alcohol swab over the blade edge, pinch gently, and run it up & down the length of the blade a couple of times. Gauze is slightly abrasive and it does a great job of scrubbing away crud. Keep some alcohol swab packets in the car.

But if you're only talking about old wiper blade refills yes. You pull out from where the detents are (usually lower end). The detents need to be at the lower side so the force of wiping won't easily force out the rubber blades.

The OEM refills may need to be trimmed to the length of the metal ribs you'll reuse. Then you insert a metal keeper clip that comes with each refill at the end so the ribs stay in place.

That helps. As with cleaning the windshield frequently so you don't wipe over dust particles and bugs. Blades will then last a lot longer. No, I haven't try those expensive wipers yet just the cheap regular stuff. :)

I've been really happy with Trico blades for the past few years. I don't look at other brands any more, so I don't know where these fit in the pricing hierarchy. I last replaced the blades (with the metal assembly) in December 2005 and they're doing fine, even after being beat up with ice, snow, and storms of broken glass, shrapnel, fire and all sorts of other horrible stuff we get in upstate NY.