Rick's Free Auto Repair Advice

Best Wiper Blade Brands and Styles

Best Wiper Blade Brands and Styles

Wiper Blade Brands

Trico and Anco wiper blades are both owned by First Brands, LLC. First Brands also owns Fram filters, Champion Labs (filters), Strongarm lifts, Autolite spark plugs, Airtex fuel pumps Carter fuel parts, and Brake Parts Incorporated (Raybestos brake parts).

Michelin wiper blades are made by Pylon

Valeo wiper blades made by PIAA

Rain x wiper blades made by ITW Global Brands makes of Black Magic, Blue Coral, Devcon, Fast Orange, Fix-A-Flat, Genuine Innovations, Gumout, No Touch, Permatex, Slick 50, Slime, Spray Nine, The Right Stuff, and VersaChem

Bosch wiper blades

Wondering WHEN you should replace wiper blades? See this post

Wiper blade styles

Standard wiper blades

Up until the 90’s all cars and trucks came with standard wiper blades. The wiper blade was built with a frame that connected to the wiper arm and several springs to distribute the downward force to the rubber insert. Standard wiper blades contain either two or four springs to achieve either four or eight pressure points along with the rubber insert.

Standard wiper blades are the least expensive of all types. They work fine to remove water, snow, ice, mud, and road grit. But due to their open design, snow can pack into the springs, preventing them from exerting even force along the rubber insert. When that happens, you get uneven wiping which leaves streaks and unwiped areas on your windshield.

One option to avoid the problem is to use standard wiper blades in the Summer and Fall and switch to Winter wiper blades with a boot or Winter extreme blades in winter.

Beam style blades

To improve wiping evenness, carmakers switched to a “beam” style blade. The beam blade eliminates the traditional frame and spring and uses a flat curved spring with a rubber squeegee attached to the bottom portion. In theory, the spring steel is supposed to apply equal pressure across the entire rubber squeegee. The design works well on shorter blades but doesn’t do quite as good a job with longer wiper blades. In those applications, the edges of the blade don’t wipe as well. So wiper manufacturers beefed up the design with reinforcement along the back and also introduced a hybrid blade.

Reinforced beam style blades

This blade is similar to the original beam style but with the addition of a curved reinforcement member to prevent edge lift. That’s an especially important feature for longer wiper blades. If you have a choice between a traditional beam blade and a reinforced beam blade and you have long wiper blades, choose the reinforced style.

Hybrid wiper blades

Hybrid wiper blades provide all the advantages of a standard frame and a reinforced beam style blade. It provides more stability, especially at higher speeds. The hybrid design greatly reduces skipping and chatter and does a much better job than the earlier designs.

Wiper blade best brands

Anco and Trico are the two major American brands and Bosch is a major brand for imports. Anco wiper blades are my personal favorite because they’re available at all Walmart stores and they’re priced competitively.

Anco, Trico, and Bosch use high-quality rubber squeegee material to prevent UV degradation and “park set,” a permanent “set” caused by leaving your wipers in the parked position.

Economy brands use plastic frames and springs and lower-quality rubber material. You’ll experience shorter life and more chatter, flex, skipping, and unwiped areas with less expensive brands.

Avoid economy wiper blades

Sure they’re cheaper, but there’s a reason for that. They don’t work as well or last as long.

Best places to buy wiper blades

Buy Anco blades right off the shelf at WalMart. DON’T buy them from a retail auto parts store—ou’ll pay almost double if you buy the same blades at auto parts stores.

What’s the difference between Anco wiper blade styles

Anco Conventional: Standard design with frame and springs. Least expensive. Prone to snow packing.

Anco Contour: Beam style. Great for shorter blades. Can experience edge lift with longer blades

Anco Profile: Beam blade with reinforcement and aerodynamic assist. Best blade for wiping at highway speeds. The aerodynamic reinforcement bar uses wind pressure to force the blade onto the glass to prevent wind lift.

Anco Hybrid: Best of beam and conventional designs. Sturdy and best wiping of all styles

Anco Winter with boot: A conventional blade with frame and springs wrapped in a rubber boot to prevent snow packing. Great for winter. Not very pretty.

Anco Winter Extreme: Provides best winter wiping with no snow pack in a more attractive design

 

Posted on by Rick Muscoplat



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