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I fitted the 21" Bosch refills this weekend, which I had sitting on the kitchen counter. So after a few weeks I was motivated and encouraged by my wife and pulled them out of the kitchen trash!
There are two things that I want to point out.
The stainless steel stiffeners are not the same at each end. The end opposite the plastic mounting clip has much of the metal knotched out which makes it more flexible. So the platic mounting clip should go on the bottom of the wiper arm. This will allow the end of the right hand wiper to better conform to the curvature at the right hand side of the windshield.
After I mounted the wiper, I noticed that the wiper was not straight. The belly of the wiper stuck out. When I pressed the wiper on the table, it took consideralbe force to flatten the blade and get the ends of the wiper to contact the table. This was not going to work on the vehicle.
The stainless steel strips are not flat. Perhaps they should be flat, or perhaps the curature is meant to be there and they were assembled wrong.
I removed the stainless steel strips and swapped them side to side, which produces the opposite curature. This works well on my Saab.
If your refills are like mine were, here is how to change them them. The plastic mounting clip is bonded on to the rubber. The stainless steel strips have a knotch in them, on the outboard edge, that is captured by the platic mounting clip. To remove, just twist the stainless steel strip 180 degrees and pull out. To replace, simply reverse.
I also decided to look at my original OEM 8 point wipers. I have been using the Bosch 6 point wipers. I noticed that the old OEM wipers were badly worn. The joints were loose. I was able to tighten them up with some 5" vicegrips. I then put a small amount of oil into the tightened joints, hoping that this would reduce ice locking.
When using vicegrips to tighten up the joints, apply pressure more towards the back of the U section. Doing this at the ends of the U legs will create more non deformable spring action, which will then tend to also collapse the section of the carried arm which then not make the joint tighter. Work carefully. The joint should still be free, you only want to take out the slack and wobbling.
I replace the wipers on the 97 TDI Passat. Same problem with the refills.
95SET
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