Silblade Silicone Windshield Wipers

Let's face it, the genuine Land Rover wiper blades for the Discovery II are terrible.  After only a few months, they smear and streak the windshield.  You try cleaning them, degreasing them, but nothing seems to work.  At around six to seven months, they barely do anything.  Sometimes it is safer to not use them at all.  Spray your washer fluid in bright, glaring light and you are blind.  So why use the genuine blades?  Land Rover conveniently designed a wiper arm that fits only the genuine blades.  Lovely.  In addition to that, they are expensive; currently going for $28.00 for the front pair.  The wiper arm also has trouble keeping constant pressure on the windshield leaving areas unwiped, or more accurately, unstreaked. 

The Problem With Rubber

The genuine blades are made from rubber.  This means they are easily degraded by:  rubbing on the windshield, sand, dirt, windshield solvents, extreme hot and cold temperatures, UV light, ozone, ice, snow, and acid rain.  This degradation creates voids, tears, and cracks at the edge of the blade preventing full contact with the windshield.  This allows for dirt and grease to buildup on the edge.  The result:  poor performance. 

Keeping pressure on the windshield is the other key factor for good wiping performance.  The Discovery II wiper arm and blade do a poor job of this too.  Even with brand new blades, I needed to bend them to achieve good windshield contact. 

Discovery I Fix

The Land Rover Discovery I wiper arm has the standard U-shaped mount.  This means you can go into any auto parts store and pick up a set of high quality blades.  The Discovery I wiper arm fits perfectly on the Discovery II and has the same wiping pattern.  This conversion takes all of 5 minutes:  Pop off the old cover plug, unbolt the old wiper arm, bolt on the new one, and pop on the new cover. 

Silblade

Silicon wiper blades do not degrade like rubber blades and can last years instead of months.  Silblade wipers come with a 5 year warranty; If the blade fails in any way they will replace it free of charge. 

Expedition Exchange sells a kit containing Discovery I wiper arms and Silblade wipers.  Click here.  Yes, Silblade wipers sell for $18.00 each, making them more expensive than the genuine wipers.  But since they last 10 times as long and do a fantastic job wiping the windshield, it makes no sense to continue using the genuine wipers. 

Update 12.21.06

As of today, the wiper blades work just as well as when they were brand new.  They wipe completely along the full length of each blade without any streaking.  No other wiper blade I have ever owned has lasted this long. 

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