Better W/S wipers?

[928ram]

Not kidding....

Have any of you found a particular brand/model of wipers that lasts longer than average and operate quietly thru thier life?
The truck is due again and I've always just replaced with the typical black rubber blades, but the sun takes a toll on them in a fairly short time which leads to streaking, and most recently chattering on the upswing, so I'm looking for something that'll hang in there for a bit longer.

[Rufblackbird]

I've always had great success with Bosch excel blades...don't know how often I replace them but they've worked great for me, and it's the only brand I'll buy.

[RallyJon]

Trying these on the Subaru now instead of the rubber covered winter blades. They're really nice, but I've only had them for a few months, and any blade works fine when new. They do maintain great contact with the windshield with no chattering like hinged blades. Great aerodynamics, too, even without the little wing on the OEM blades.

http://www.tirerack.com/accessories/valeo/ultimate.jsp

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Anyone else notice that the supposedly "original" Bosch blades don't follow the contour of the windshield properly on the 944s? They tend to leave a gap between the glass and the blade at the extreme bottom of the wiper's travel on the passenger's side. Pretty sad attention to detail, IMO. I've had this happen on both my 944s and with two sets of new "original" wipers each. The separation is only a centimeter or two, but at speed it's enough to allow air to get behind it and make it flutter a bit. NOT Porsche quality. Yes, I've tried bending the blade so it follows the contour better. It doesn't work.

[Jay Auskin]

I've tried alot of the "premium" blades, and have been very unimpressed. One winter I mucked up a wiper blade scraping some ice. I was going to hit the road, and needed a quick replacement. I was near a Target store and piced up some Car & Driver blades for $5.00 a piece. I was sure I'd throw them out the next day, but no. These have been by far the best wiper blades I ever bought. They lasted a good year, and I just replaced them again before winter. Try them, if you don't like them, it only cost you $10.

[id10t]

Put rain-x on your glass and do it regularly and it won't really matter what shape your wipers are in, at least until they start to groove the glass

[SteveStromberg]

Put a few drops of Jet Dry in the washer bottle.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Rain-X sucks. It just makes the windshield surface greasy looking and streaky. It's a pain to re-apply too. I like the Jet-Dry idea. . . Interesting.

Nobody knows why the supposedly "stock" windshield wipers offered here don't seem to fit the 944 windshield snugly?

[928ram]

Thanks for the replies, I'll see which of the above the local auto-mart has in stock, heading out on a garage-buying trip in the AM (we'll get a house too) so I'll need to get somethin local.

I use the rain-X cleaner solution in the washer bottle and love it because it does an excellent job detergent-wise as well as adding the rain-X treatment everythime you use the washers.

P-O-P, I've had the same problem and in my case it was the groove in the insert binding with the "fingers" that hold it. What I had to do was open the fingers up slightly in a couple spot, and on the end I had to use needle-nose pliers to twist the fingers a few degrees so that they were more parallel to the W/S.

[djmcmath]

A lot of people complain about greasy streaking with rain-x. Mysteriously, I've never had any problems with the stuff. I wonder if we're applying it differently, or if there's something funky about so-cal rain, or something?

Dan

[asphaltgambler]

On the 944 issue, are you replacing the whole assy or just the rubber insert?