Hey everyone,

I found a guy on eBay who sells those PIAA wiper blades for a reasonable price. Those are the silicone blades that IPD raves about and charges an arm and a leg for. For example, IPD sells the 20" ones for the 700/900 series windshield wipers for $46.00/pair.

There's a guy on eBay selling the 20" ones for $15.00 each or $30/pair. I've just sent him an e-mail to see if he could give us a "bulk price" if we were to do a group buy and place an order for several pair at once. I'm still waiting to hear back from him. In the meantime I'd like to know how many people would be interested in participating in a group buy, how many they would want and what lengths.

Please let me know asap.

Roj

I would want 3 20" and 2 17" please

Roj - whats so great about these blades?

...I may be interested... I'm not sure what size I need though....

Well for one thing the blades are 100% silicone which supposedly works better and lasts a lot longer. I imagine it would stay more flexible and work better in cold temperatures as well.

The blades also come with a special PIAA windshield treatment. When you install the blades you clean the windshield and then apply this treatment. You're then supposed to turn the wipers on for 5 minutes so that the treatment stuff can form a water repelling barrier on the windshield. I don't know if it works any better than Rain-X or some of the other similar products but IPD says it works quite well. They get a lot of rain down in Portland during the winter so they probably know from experience if those blades work better and last longer than regular blades.

IPD sells a pair normal Bosch blades for about $22 for your car whereas they normally sell the PIAAs sell for your car for about $46/pair. They claim they're well worth the extra cost. I've never tried the PIAAs myself but this guy on eBay's selling them for about what I'd have to pay for decent Bosch blades here so that's why I'm interested. I've never been very happy with any Bosch or Trico blade I've put on my car so given that I can get a PIAA for close to the same price I'm thinkin' I want to give 'em a try and see what all the fuss is about...

You need a pair of 21" blades for your car, BTW.

thanks. i actually have spare volvo blades...somewhere...but i find dem volvo blades just plain SUCK...so if I can try something better, I will.

...and if they really do suck even worse than the volvo ones....then i still have the extra volvo ones....(dad liked to have an extra set handy...since he had the car up in cold lake)

I find it hard to beat the Canadian Tire "Reflex" wiper blades. work awesome, priced not bad, and easy to get without getting them shipped in.

you got em on the c70? how good are they in icey crap?

I've got the Reflex as well, and I'm a believer in them. No exposed frame to ice up, and a small profile so they don't float like the "winter" blades do, and without all those moving pieces to wear out they don't chatter and skip after time. Stable and smooth down to low temperatures, so long as your wiper arms are properly adjusted. Roberta and I both have them.

Wiper blades don't last very long in my car anyway, 'cause my windshield is kind of old and pitted. The pits and dirt and grit wear down the sharp edges very quickly, and the wiper starts to lose it's effectiveness after a year or so. With a new windshield I'll go for 2 years, but no longer than that. It's not like we get lots of RAIN up here - it's mostly dirt and salt and grit that we're wiping off, very hard on wiper blades.

However, the Reflex blades are $20 each, so not much cheaper than the Piaa ones, but I think Piaa is a bunch of overpriced junk anyway.

I agree with Matt completely. I get a set of flexible blades like he describes wholesale for like $25 or so. Nice and flexible, no external frame to freeze/rust. I'd rather buy the OE bosch ones for like $5 each though, since silicone won't do much unless you have a super smooth windshield and live in dream land with wiping clean water. You will just grind 'em up like the rest otherwise.

I live in Portland. I had a 245 that I was the 3rd owner of with 335K miles on it. Every ~60K it would eat a wiper motor, even with the much better late 1992 style linkage and motor. Part of the problem is that it frosts, and dribbles a little rain all the time. Not just heavy rain, so you always have your wipers on with a little rain grinding up all the road spray. I think I have a permanent kink in my arm from freeing up and lubing 240 wiper transmissions under the dash. If you use the early 80- 240 wipers enough, you'll be driving at higher speed in heavy rain and your wiper arm will vacate the car (both Adrian's and my 240s that are even the same color (and 78-80 vintage) did this trick). Really.

Soon afterwards, you discover your early 240 linkage is such worn out junk that it has so much slop that the motor will no longer sense the turning point for intermittent. Both Adrian's and my early PNW 240s do this trick too. Fun. Needless to say, I'll be yanking the wiper linkage out of a 97K mile 1992 240 parts car. The wipers look sleeker and sit lower on the window and are stronger anyway.

Wow.. i've never changed a 240 wiper motor, and the blades on my 244 are the ones bought when I was 16 (2002).

I guess it usually sees half a winter and then gets parked. The one blade is starting to come off on the end now.. time to grab the ones off my beater.

I did some research on those CT Reflex blades and looked at a lot of forums where people discuss whether or not they're good and also checked the customer reviews on CT's website and I can tell you that at least half the people reviewing them thought they were a waste of money and didn't work very well at all.

Check out the reviews on CTs own webpage:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/produ ... UrUMyAXLiE!

And here:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/produ ... 2325178876

It seems to be very hit and miss with those blades. A LOT of people who were rating them (probably around half) said they sucked. That doesn't give me a lot of confidence in them.

I'm not convinced that they're the best way to go. I have found something that may be the best option yet for us. See my next post.

wheres the next post...don't leave us all in suspense like this!

I'm sure some of those reviews had people using the earlier versions of the blades which sucked balls because they didn't have enough tension in the blade.

In doing some research on the CT Reflex wipers I came across these:

http://www.streakfreewiperblades.com/si ... age/798266

They're designed like the reflex wipers but have a silicone blade and have a 5 year UNCONDITIONAL manufacturers warranty on them. On their FAQ page they say "If our windshield wipers fail for any reason within 5 years of purchase just return them with proof of purchase and we will replace them for free."

The single per blade price is $25 or $50/pair but you can buy a dozen of them in black for $222 plus shipping so that works out to be $18.50 per unit (plus shipping) which is right in around what a Reflex blade costs but those will only last you a year at most. Even if these only last 2 or 3 of the 5 years they're warranted for and you can't get a warranty replacement on them they'd still be a way better value than the Reflex.

I have contacted the company to find out what the shipping cost to Canada would be via USPS and I'm waiting on an answer from them. I'm also finding out if we could still get the same price per blade if we order more than an even dozen at a time (i.e. say 16). I will report back with the answers when I receive them.

You can mix sizes when you order them by the dozen so anybody can order them for whatever cars they want them for. I'm in for 4 blades. Raz, do you still want the 5 you were down for before ? Dale says he's in for 3 for his 740 wagon so if Raz is still in for his 5 we've got an even dozen already.

As I said I'm trying to find out if we can get the same rate if we buy more than an even dozen so if anyone else is interested in getting some of these blades let me know how many and what length(s) you want them.

well i guess keep us all posted...