It’s been absurdly rainy where I live lately, a fact that I’m pretty sick of, to be honest. Whatever the point this weather is trying to make, I think it’s made it, already. It’s wet. Water falls from the sky all the damn time. That also means that I’ve been thinking about windshield wipers more than normal lately, and I have to say, what I’ve realized is downright disturbing. That’s because the state of windshield wipers in the world right now is one of absolute madness, and for no good reason whatsoever. It’s not because of how they function – windshield wipers are generally just fine on almost every car – but how we replace the wiper blades.
Wiper blades are a consumable, as we all know, and the difference between old, worn wiper blades and fresh, new ones is dramatic and obvious. It’s a safety issue as well, since these directly affect how well you can see while driving, which is, I’m told, quite important. So you’d think it would be a good idea to make wiper blade replacement as easy as possible, right?
Well, if you’ve replaced your wiper blades recently, then I think you’ll agree that we have, as a species, not achieved that goal. Wiper blade replacement is an ass-pain, and for no good reason that I can tell. It’s not so much the physical act of replacing the wiper blades –it’s usually not so bad, though it can vary pretty wildly – it’s more a matter of figuring out exactly what kind of wiper blade you need. And I don’t just mean size, I mean the shape and design of the fitting that holds the blade to the wiper arm, of which there are a bewildering array of options, and I am absolutely baffled – no, wait – flummoxed as to why.
The level of madness hit me the other day when I went to replace the wipers on three of my cars – a 1989 Ford F-150, a 2010 Volkswagen Tiguan, and a 1990 Nissan Pao. They all used different fittings, and I had no idea which one used what kind until I went out and checked. After this, I decided to check all my cars and see what kind of wiper fittings they used, and here’s what I found:
Of the seven cars in my fleet, running and non-running, I have five different kinds of wiper fittings. The Dodge RV and the F-150 both use a form of the “pin” style of wiper blade fitting, the Pao and Beetle both used the J-shaped style, the Tiguan used some kind of pinch-tab/button thing, the 2CV uses what may be a claw-type arm (I’m not sure), the Changli uses something surprisingly substantial-looking and mysterious, as was the case with the unknown wiper I found in my driveway from some other car I no longer have.
Here’s the thing about all of those wiper fittings: they’re all fine. I’ve had all kinds of cars in all kinds of states of repair/disrepair, and I’ve almost never had a car fling off its wiper blades. I’ve had wiper problems, sure, but I think the problem of how to keep the blade attached to the arm is an extremely solved problem, for every one of these methods.
It’s not like there’s ones I like better or worse, or, really, have any opinion on whatsoever. They’re all fine. I had no idea what type each of my cars had because who gives a brace of BMs about this? Are there people who will, say, refuse to drive a BMW because it uses pinch tab wiper arms instead of top button arms? I’m going to say that person does not exist. And if they do, I think they’re fools.
And my small sample of wiper blade fittings was just a tiny slice of this whole huge ridiculous pie of wiper fittings. I tried to get a full list of all the different types, but you know what? That’s almost impossible to do, because there are so damn many of these things, there doesn’t seem to be one standard set. Conservatively, I think there are between 16 and 18 common types of wiper fittings, and likely many more less-common ones. Just look:
We have hooks and pin arms (large and small, side and otherwise) and bayonet arms and pinch tabs and rock locks and J-hooks and push buttons (of slim and non-slim varieties) and claws and so many named for combinations of letters and numbers and what the hell are we doing here? This is, objectively, madness. These all do the same job, in basically the same way, with the same general look, size, performance specs, everything. There is nothing a pinch tab wiper attachment mechanism does that is so much better or worse than a J-hook or a push button or whatever.
I defy anyone to tell me that they have some sort of deeply-held preference for a particular kind of wiper fitting. Some are easier to get on and off than others, so I can believe that people may have preferences there, but in actual use? No one can tell one from the other.
Is there some kind of engineer mass delusion happening here that makes automotive wiper engineers think that they need to re-design fucking wiper arms because they have an idea for one that is so much better? It’s ludicrous.
The wild proliferation of different types of wiper blade fittings has become a safety issue too, because normal, non-car-obsessed drivers, people who should be able to easily replace their wipers on their own, as needed, often don’t have any idea how bonkers the world of wiper blades is. They go in and buy blades of the size they think they need but perhaps don’t realize there’s forty heptillion kinds of fittings, and then end up with the useless wiper blades just sitting on the passenger floorboards of their car after they tried to install them, saw a small black plastic puzzle as complex as a Rubik’s cube, and gave up. So old wiper blades end up staying on longer, because finding replacements is a pain. I’ve seen this happen many, many times.
It’s not impossible, of course; most auto parts stores can check databases and find the kind needed, and usually – but not always –they’re right. But that doesn’t make any of this actually make any more sense. The only sensible thing to happen here is that there should be only one type of wiper blade fitting, and that should be standard across all cars.
I’m not kidding. This should be mandated legally, if possible, and if a carmaker refuses to comply with The One True Wiper Blade Fitting, then the CEO of that company goes to jail. Maybe we let them out when the company finally agrees to use the wiper blade standard. Maybe.
I don’t even really care which standard type of fitting is picked. I’d prefer one of the less complicated ones that are easier to install, but if there was just one, I’d accept almost anything. And sure, if some company has some radical kind of wiper that absolutely has to have some proprietary blade fitting, then, fine, they can apply for an exception. But everything else? One kind.
I’d even want to mandate recalls for every freaking car on the road, where wiper arms are replaced with whatever standard we pick. I don’t care what it costs! We’ll print the money if we have to! It’ll all work out in the end with the massive savings that will come from companies not having to build a snacktillion different kinds of wiper blade fittings.
If there is an argument to why we somehow need all these different kinds of wiper blade fittings, I will listen to that argument. I’d love to hear that argument, actually, because I genuinely do not understand why we’ve let wiper arms get so out of hand like this. Maybe there is a reason! A reason that I simply cannot see because I’m too shallow and crude to appreciate how much better a claw-type wiper arm is as opposed to a pin-type or whatever. Feel free to make this make sense.
If not, then please consider this my formal demand that all wiper blade fittings be standardized by, oh, 2027. That should be plenty of time. Come January 2027, all you need to know to buy new wiper blades will be the size. You can swap good ones from your Camaro onto your BRZ if you want, or from your Land Rover to your Jeep, or whatever in this glorious future. You can buy new blades for your partner’s car because you saw they needed them with barely a thought.
It’s going to be a beautiful new world when we finally have true wiper blade unity.
Jason’s head would explode if he worked in a bicycle shop and had to replace a derailleur hangar. Imagine having over 150 designs, and many for bicycles that are decades out of production, but may roll into the shop at any moment. Ironically, the threaded part for the derailleur is standard, it’s just the hot garbage shapes that attach it to the frame that are uniquely shitty.
Bicycle parts standards through the years are garbage for sure. But you know what the say: “The best thing about standards is that there are so many of them.”
I always said that with bicycles, the Industry Standard is: There is no standard.
It was really frustrating trying to find what parts fit my old Motobecane
Old 70’s and 80’s bikes can be repurposed into great city bikes. The late Sheldon Brown RIP had created a great website to break down bike info into easy to understand pages. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/
If that fails, just message me, I’ve been a bike mechanic for 26 years.
I ended up coming across his page at some point, it was very helpful for an absolute beginner. I swapped bars and brakes onto it and as someone without any experience with bikes outside of Walmart level mountain bikes from childhood, it’s a smooth and light ride.
I’m lucky enough that its new enough to have off the shelf brakes/derailleurs and the only funky parts are the freewheel and bottom bracket.
Glad you were able to experience an actual bicycle. It makes me very sad that people’s first and often last try of a bicycle is one from a box store like walmart.
Those are what the cycling industry calls “Bicycle Shaped Objects”. They are made by Pacific cycle corporation and are designed to be as cheap as possible, often with parts that will not even last a season of light use. They are assembled by the same associates that build grilles and patio furniture and are paid by how fast they assemble stuff. I’ve walked the isles and seen forks installed backwards and many unsafe issues. When left outside, any component with moving parts will inevitably rust and seize. The entire bike is made so cheaply that quality repair parts often don’t properly fit, or the repairs will cost as much as the purchase price. So the cycle continues to favor the store: Bike is purchased for a kid, it is soon busted or simply ceased working much at all, the quote from the local bicycle shop (LBS) seems offensively high, and their bikes are $250+. So the consumer buys another BSO from the box store. Then their kid stops riding and seems to prefer video games. Imagine if everyone’s first car was a Yugo or a Lada with a similar lack of good repair options. Not many people would enjoy driving.
Sorry if that was a rant. It’s been pent up for nearly a quarter century. For the past 13 years, I’ve been fixing up kids bikes in the neighborhood for free, and giving away ones that I come across after I tune them up. Because a good kids bike from a shop can last several generations of kids.
I must old (well, I am) I remember when all you needed was the rubber bits. Unclip the spring stainless steel long pice, assemble on the new rubber, and slide them in. Simple, easy. BTW, those stainless steel pieces make excellent linear springs.
From the 60s (maybe earlier, this is just my experience) through the 80s or early 90s there were like 3 total attachment styles.
And refilling your existing wiper blade was a thing.
I took a part time job at the Green O’ a few years back when work was slow and damn.
My mind was blown when I opened a Bosch blade box to find a ridiculous bag of adapters and cryptic Ikea style instructions for different vehicles. F that with a big stick!
I vote Slide Pin (#8) in the chart… no snaps or clips to fight with… can change a blade in 5 seconds.
Well on the Volvo XC60 the replacement wipers are like $125 a pair because they are heated. Luckily you can just replace the blades much much cheaper.
My vote is for the J-hook. They’re almost foolproof.
While we are talking standardization, let’s do the same with air filters. One size of flexible panel air filter. One filter needed for a little 4 cylinder. If you have a fire breathing turbo or V8, two or three of them in a row.
I don’t even bother anymore and just have the dealer swap them at the markup. Only my viper has the J Hook style which I replaced myself and in theory those work really well…until they’re old and rusty and then you hate yourself.
J hook or pinwheel are the correct ones, all the other styles are janky af.
Easily the best style is the SP “spin on” version used on many MB, BMW, and a handful of Ford and Volvo from about 2005-2018.
Super simple to swap on and off. Install them with the blade facing away from the windshield on the post, and spin it 180. Bam. Done.
Up until last year I actually thought they were standardized in the 90’s, every care from 1991 till last year I’ve every replaced seemed to be the J and worked right out of the package. Be it my vehicle or any relatives or friends I ever replaced. Id open the wiper then toss all those extra pieces in the trach with the box. The I went to replace by moms 2024 Subaru Crosstrek and was like what is this madness? It replaced a Forester and that had the J’s why did they change, and none of the adapters in the package worked?!?!?! Now I have a Maverick that needs new blades and I just looked at them and they are different as well.
OMG THIS.
Those of us with B5 generation Audi A4s/S4s like to swap over wiper arms from a B5 VW Passat. They are a side-pin style which is lower profile and more aerodynamic than the j-hook. It’s also much easier to swap blades.
If I’m 100% positive the vehicle has the original wiper blades (the metal part), I always try to fit new inserts. Did that with my Accord when I had it, still do it for my wife’s Odyssey. Did it with a RAV4 as well up until two years ago when I needed a new front set to pass inspection, so I just let them change them. Since I wasn’t sure if they replaced the blades entirely or only the insert, I decided before this year’s inspection to put on a complete car set of “exact fit” beam style Denso blades that I picked up from Rock Auto and am very happy with them. Really wanted to switch to beam style from traditional because was getting sick and tired of all the crap a tree in my yard keeps dropping each spring getting stuck in the blade.
Went to auto parts store last month to buy ‘just the inserts’ for my ’71 Ford F100.
Was told ‘we no longer sell them, haven’t for about 5 years’.
Second auto parts store had same response. They suggested buying ‘vintage’ replacements – silver metal instead of black, like the original – for $24 each!
I’ve tried the same thing and just can’t find them either. Amazon sells just the rubber inserts but those are usually an “I need it now” type of purchase vs something you can wait for, not to mention they all seem to be no-name parts that might or might not be any good…
the best was W124 single blade wiper. Mf was a fortune to repair and blades were also premium but boy it is a pure sex when in operation.
i always thought that putting double wipers in W140 was a huge flaw, they should have 100% kept the single blade on that big guy
The w124 one should be made standard on everything really. One single blade and really sexy. The can be bad for traffic safety though,if you’re easily distracted.
I think this is another problem that Trump could solve.
They are eating the wiper blades!
Make wiper blade arms great again!!!
I was thinking that when I read the article. I am surprised he doesn’t patent some wiper configuration and then make that the mandatory option.
Jason, watch your back if you’re passing by the fourth most popular J-hook bar. They’re not happy with you.
Former wiper blade design engineer here. The root of the problem is automakers usually specify what connection is to be used, unless the wiper system supplier convinces the automaker that their new design X is better for ABC reasons. Bosch is notorious for this. My former employer was a supplier for many jeep and dodge vehicles, while also being a major player in the aftermarket world.
If you think front wiper blade connections are bad, rear window wipers are even worse. Most are designed to be mostly or completely unique to the vehicle for aesthetic reasons, and since they’re not strictly critical for safety, performance tends to be third after looks and cost.
Simplifying to the ‘one true wiper connection’ standard similar to USB-C adoption would also save both the customer and manufacturer of aftermarket wiper blades money by omitting the 5-15 different unused adapters in each package that go directly in the trash. Each part is approximately $0.05 but also costs a few hundred thousand dollars in design, tooling, shipping, and packaging.
long live the 9×3 J hook, but if we have to pick one to rule them all the 12×4 J hook most motorhomes use would be plenty for any vehicle/blade size.
Sounds like Bosch.
I once had a row with a brake engineer who said aluminium belled brake discs don’t work, despite them being a production solution for multiple OEMs, just because his OEM had never used them.
OEM standards are a job creation scheme and a global waste.
Sounds about right unfortunately. It’s even worse at an automaker vs supplier.
“Former wiper blade design engineer here.”…
All this firsthand knowledge among the commentariat is one of the things I love about The Autopian.
It wasn’t a terrible job, but they laid me off during Covid to outsource the little remaining American engineering staff to India. It’s the First Brands Group way, sucking as much value out of an established brand as possible.
That’s quite a list of brands! https://firstbrandsgroup.com/our-brands
I’ve got StopTech brakes on my car…
When your list of automotive brands includes Fram and Autolite, that should tell you most of the story. That said, years of ownership has a strong impact on how terrible the product will be. It takes a while to value engineer (read cost cut) to the point of hitting Fram levels of quality.
I hope the editorial team read the comments and let you do some wiper design related articles,that would be so fucking awesome. On point for The Autopian as well.
While I appreciate the sentiment, there’s really not that much to write about. 90% of my job was designing couplers (center section that connects wiper element to arm adapter) that ‘looked good’ to my boss/marketing. From there it was normal design for manufacturing, 3d printing for initial performance testing, and packaging design.
One of the most important things I worked on while I was there was converting from twin beam-captive element to bonded single beam elements that reduced cost significantly. Our data showed the overwhelming majority of people wanted to replace the entire assembly as fast as possible rather than just replacing an insert and assembling a multi part element was a significant portion of assembly/packaging cost. So, we reduced 3 parts to 1, where the rubber element was glued directly to the steel beam and could quickly be inserted into the coupler.
The other was designing a few new coupler – adapter interfaces, and associated adapters, to be as universal as possible. Got my name on a few patents there. Figuring out how to make 1 adapter that could take 9×3, 9×4, 12×4, side pin, 19mm bayonet, 22mm bayonet, and a few flavors of push lock was a challenge, mostly because the interfaces all wanted different blade pivot points. That one took a few years and a lot of 3d printing/testing and I’m not sure it’s even to market yet 5 years later.
The answer as normal is profiteering.
Don’t buy any wipers that don’t offer refills everywhere either.
Most are built to fail early too.
Goodyear has a retro model in steel with a decent blade, sold in limited places. I forget the name.
How is it profiteering though? They’ll charge the same price either way and with the different standards it costs them all more money to design/manufacture/ship/store/etc…
It’s all higher now.
Walmart used to have a wide stock of silicone triple edge inserts, for around $3 a pair.
Someone bought them, and the price soared.
I think quality is down, and I’m not sure you can get inserts now.
The Goodyear retro model was under $10 each, and good quality rubber.
No bells and whistles, but decent.
Notable at that price now.
Many of the high ends offer inserts by order.
A friend goes to auto. parts places in bad weather to pick up discarded blades.
Often one is good.
And an easy way to get the support part to add inserts to.
I’ve been lucky enough to only deal with J-hooks and pins my entire automotive life. Pins on Fords and J’s on Geos, Hondas, a VW and a Nissan.
Same here, until we got our ’21 Outback…oh hello, new standard!
The pins sucked, the J-hook rules and everyone should have stuck with it.
You haven’t lived life unless you were part of the 80’s accessory trends. Nothing like finding neon pink, green, or blue rubber sleeves to wrap around your windshield wiper arms to give’em that Miami Vice pop of color and be oh soooooo 80’s rad and cool. I wish I were kidding about this, but I am not. Oh, and don’t forget the matching stick on door lock surround appliqués or that matching neon colored ball for the top of your mast atenna.
Don’t forget about the double-bladed (and maybe even triple-bladed?) wipers that were also popular in the 80s.
Even into the 90’s and early 00’s.
I loved those – but they got stolen all the damn time. Longest I was able to keep a set was about two weeks.
A month back, I needed to replace the wipers on my Fusion because the driver’s side blade was actively disintegrating during a downpour. Getting the old ones off was a huge pain. Getting the new ones was not happening.
Turns out the previous owner had put on a fitting at random and just jammed it on the arm.
To be fair, that did hold perfectly fine for three years and many thousands of miles under my stewardship, and I had no reason to suspect anything was awry, but this would not have been an issue in a world with one windshield wiper attachment standard.
At any rate, a quick Google search told me the correct mount to use just in time for the rain to stop.
This reeks of “exclusivity syndrome” when it comes to auto parts. Why would you need to put the same wiper blades that fit on a Kia Soul as well as a Bugatti Chiron.
I work at O’Reilly and it’s a point of pride for me that I know how all of these work and can replace them quickly but boy oh boy there’s absolutely no reason for the whole mess.
Every car I buy has a new mystery wiper fitting to discover, for about 6-8 cars now. 2 of those were Acuras (’05 RL, ’07 MDX) and even they have different fittings. The RL needs come crazy proprietary wipers that aren’t shown here. You buy inserts.
FYI, IIRC later model F-150 arms will retrofit.
OR
Maybe LMC truck sells a J-hook retrofit kit for your truck. I know I upgraded on my 89 F-150, but I don’t remember how…. Great upgrade though, fixed the wiper chatter.
Why do we need 19 kinds of wiper blades? Do you know what they did to the last guy who asked that? He said he was gonna follow the money, and it led him to his grave. The Wiper Blade Fitting Mafia rules the world man I’d leave well enough alone