Windscreen wiper blade performance

[RThirtySixer]

My R36 wagon is now nearing 100,000 kms - a 2008 build.

I have occasionally thought that the fast speed on the wipers could be just that bit faster. My previous mazda SP23 had much better water clearing capability with its blades and the fastest speed was certainly "a bit" faster than the R36's.

I've just done a 550km drive down the coast and the weather was atrocious. Visibility was appaling, but it was mainly due to the wipers being unable to cope, pretty much at any speed over 60km.

Anyone else think the same thing and has anyone come across a solution or upgrade?

cheers from Sydney

[wai]

Unfortunately with larger windscreens, there comes a physical limit as to how fast you can operate windscreen wipers as they have to be stopped at each end of the sweep. It comes down to what the manufacturer designs for and what standard they have to meet.

About the only thing you might want to try is something like Rain-X or similar. This will cause the rain to bead and not flood across. The problem with these products is they have to be re-applied and the wiping action of the blades "removes" the coating. Now if only they put as much effort into wipers as they do into disposable razors...

[Lance B]

I also went down the coast on Friday and back again the same day with torrential rain all the way and the wipers worked fine. I never thought I was outdriving the wipers. The rain was that bad that it was dangerous in many places, but the wipers coped. However, my R36 is a 2010 model purchased in March this year, so maybe they upgraded them?

'From past experience on other cars, Rain-X etc works well, but I dont have any on mine at the moment.