Last night I noticed that one of my wiper blades had come off the end of the arm and was just lying at the base of the windshield. I was able to reattach it and it seems to be on there firmly but that was also the case a couple of months ago when they were first installed. Anyway, is this even remotely common? I can tell you it’s never happened to me in nearly 50 years of driving. I consider myself lucky it didn’t fall off onto the street somewhere so I didn’t have to buy another blade. If it makes a difference, they’re RainX blades and this is my first time using that brand. It may also be my last if this happens again.
You’re more lucky that you didn’t run the empty arm across your windshield and most likely leave an unrepairable gouge. I certainly wouldn’t take a chance with the existing blade again. In fact, I wouldn’t have switched away from the OEM blades in the first place, to be honest.
I had a 26" Rainex blade break its mount in a dounpour at 75 mph. The windshield was so wet that the arm did not immediately damage the windshield and I shut off the wiper and pulled over on the interstate… We ere in a rural area and the nearest parts store that I knew of was about 30 miles away. <y van had a forward park position that made it easy to change blades or clean the windshield so I just put the bare arm forward with the bare arm doing arcs in the air while the other blade cleaned my side of the windshield.
I’ve never had that happen. Because of the weird attachment on the Pontiac, I only buy the OEM blades (refill and blade). But then I put the old ones in the trunk. On the Acura I just buy the OEM refills so no attachment issue. While the blades and refills are about $25 each, I don’t seem to get the same sometimes uneven wiping like I used to get with the Trico stuff.
The only time I have ever had a wiper blade separation was when I made the mistake of buying Rain-X blades. I will never buy that brand again because of that incident.
Interesting, I considered Rain-X blades because I really like their windshield washer fluid. But after these two reports from regulars on this forum, I will stay with Bosch.
Bosch Icon wipers are the only ones I will buy at this point, but I did have decent experience with Michelin blades before switching to Bosch.
I’s not a common thing but can happen in winter weather if you get a lot of snow and ice buildup in the connector . I just changed the blades on my Ascender because this happened a couple of times… Went on rock auto and bought new Trico Beam wipers for like $6 a piece .
Make sure it clicks and locks when you attach it to the arm.Give it a good firm pull and it should lock in place.
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From what I see in the comment’s about rain-X blade’s I must have got lucky as I put rain-X blades on my truck quite a few year’s ago and the only problem I have is that annoying squeak in light rain as I don’t have the intermittent wiper’s.
I find that some blades are universal fit, which means they fit nothing well. My truck has one of those, and it easily gets knocked loose when scraping frost off the windshield.
The car is a 2009 and hasn’t had OEM blades in years. I’m also fortunate that there was minimal need for wipers and that it was the passenger side blade. Some years ago a blade broke off on the way to work on the same side (I think my car may be jinxed). I stopped at a NAPA on the way home and bought a house brand blade.
Did that in the first place when they were originally installed. Obviously it didn’t help. When I put it back on I was wearing gloves so I can’t say I felt it “click.” The part that’s supposed to “click” may not be working quite right either.
Yeah, that’s what these are. I suspect I’ve experienced the same phenomenon.