Honda OEM wiper blades, any better than aftermarket?

techman41973 · 2009-03-24T03:31:19+00:00

I have a Honda Accord nearing 300K. It could be that my winshield hastoo many small pitts that make my windshield wipers wear out quickly(2-months). I clean them once a month with rubbing alcohol and polishmy winshield with newspaper every 2-weeks or so.I have always used aftermarket blades. But I see no difference inlongevity between the more expensive and cheaper brands/models.I thought about trying the OEM blades, but they are pricey at thedealer.Has anyone noticed any longevity differences in Honda OEM blades vs.aftermarket?

E. Meyer 17 years ago

Look again - the refill rubber is $3.22. If by "clip" you mean the end caps, they are $2.30. If by "clip" you mean the center "element" that holds the blade to the arm, that's $1.61.

The $25.62 is "suggested retail" for the whole blade assembly (they sell it for $17.93). It is sort of strange that they left off the price for the driver side blade assembly, especially since its identified in the diagram.

I have become totally disillusioned with the local dealers (there are three). They all have their parts jacked up to about 3X retail and as you say, tend to not carry the cheaper essentials like wiper blade fillers at all. If it weren't for places like Majestic on the net, we'd never know what the price of some of these things is supposed to be.

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Grumpy AuContraire 17 years ago

snip

You bin spyin' on me pal???

Actually, I get two to three years out of a pair of refills.

I use Rain-X which often results in the wipers not being turned on.
Texas is notorious for lengthy droughts.

(Who ain't cheap but frugal!)

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Tegger 17 years ago

Tegger wrote in news:Xns9BD8C43B81898tegger@208.90.168.18:

Fixed the problem today.

Here's the setup I found:

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Turns out the Jelly Lube place installed the wrong lengths of wiper blades (from 2 different brands). In a way, this was fortuitous, since it flushed out another problem.

The glass place that replaced the windshield a couple of years ago somehow managed to swap the arms left for right (so they were on the wrong sides). This did not become obvious until the blades were replaced with the Jelly Lube ones I saw today. The original OEM blades appear to have had just enough clearance that they didn't foul on each other during their sweep.

Not only all that, but both wiper arm nuts were only slightly more than finger-tight, so there had been some slippage of the arms on their spindles. The spindle splines were partially flattened and smeared. How the wipers didn't eventually get turned around 180 degrees I don't know.

I put the arms on the correct sides, replaced the blades with new OEM ($25 each; includes the rubber), and tightened the nuts properly. My boss tells me he can't remember ever before having wipers that worked so well.

Aftermarket parts + incompetent servicing = disaster.

And finally, the parts guy at the local Honda dealership says he has no wiper refills that cost any more than $6. Where you guys are getting $14 refills from is a mystery to me.

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