I like a clean windscreen, so my wipers wear out very quickly, after a year or a few thousand miles.
I accept that a new pair of wipers costs less than £20, and apparently Halfords do replacement rubber strips for £9, but it's still a waste of raw materials and you have the faff of going to the shop and then fitting them.
It finally dawned on me that it is the outside end of the passenger side wiper that wears out first... and why.
It is pretty obvious once you think about it. The outside end of a wiper travels a lot further than the inside end and the passenger side wiper travels nearly twice as far as the driver's side wiper, image from here:
Solution: once they start to fade a bit, remove the rubber strips from each wiper and swap them over so that the outside passenger wiper end is now the inside driver wiper end and vice versa. If your wipers are different lengths, then just turn them 'inside out' on each side.
I tried it this weekend and it works a treat. How come nobody tells me these things?
Debate Magazine
