Tomas

Whoops!

My memory was wrong!

The 'notch' in my escaping spline was facing in toward the insert rubber, not out. I found a pic that shows it taken when I was trying to track down the manufacturer of my windshield:



(My windshield and hood were damaged by vandalism - $1800 worth - and it took two windshield replacements to get one that fit correctly - there's an old thread laying around ScionLife somewhere about THAT fiasco. )

SciFly

from the other thread, I was writing reply when you locked it, SM.

no- we -dont need two threads. The other thread was made to call attention to this thread by my making a big, loud SHOUTING title. I think it's served it's purpose. Thanks for the lock

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Understand you fine. Scion will make final determination and surely make good for all at risk.

You can read the preliminary test instructions at the red-fonted posting above here.


Tomas: thanks for the excellent picture.

Confirmed again by testing here: it matters not which way the splines face: their notches do not fit into the clamping claws. Migght as well not even be notched, then.

hotbox: If your wipers pass the inspection test with pliers, then, right, I would not worry about them, either. If they are defective like mine are, I won't be surprised if Scion sends you a new pair of -known good- blades. They are good about taking care of genuine problems like this small thing.

Wonder how many $$$ this saves Scion in damage claims? Must be a lot!

We love our cars and we all are happy to work with Scion to put out small brush fires like this one.

SciFly

This red test is confirmed-good. It shows that even my blade, DRY, slips out its spline. I don't even need to soap it down. Try it dry, then, if your blade passes that, do the soap test to confirm that the retention is OK

Please make this test to your Scion xB blades. Report back -here- with your results. Include the approximate month/year of your car's purchase along with your pass/fail report . That will help establish the how widespread the problem is for all of us.
thanks!




Blade Safety Test, final version



-on the passenger side blade (it's the easy one to work with) .
Pull on the rubber end and bend the rubber blade end over to one side .
This exposes one of the two spine-splines.


-grip the exposed spline end with a good, fine-serrated tip needlenose plier or other good plier.

-pull and jiggle firmly on the spline. It should -not slide out-.
The spline should be impossible to slide out.

If the spline seems to stay put OK, do this next to be sure it's safe:


-soak the wiper blade with very soapy water to make the splines wet and super-slippery.

-now repeat the tug test. The soap makes the splines freely slippery in the rubber grooves. But if they are really anchored in there by notches as per the basic design evidences, the splines cannot c ome out. Not even if you pull very hard. Must not come out no matter how you jiggle as you pull.


If the one spline passes this test next bend the rubber tip over to the other side and test the other spline. Both must remain locked in the blade.


If the blade passes this tug-test, congratualtions.

If it fails: get new wipers as soon as possible.



19 inch seems to fit best, or 20" if you want them just as long as original size.

Instructions on how to R and R and recycle the Scion plastic insert clips should come next. Anyone got time and a close-up camera to help do this for us?

Tomas

"Scion plastic insert clips?"

RPMxB

Check out this thread from grizzly_choppers, a SL member and Scion Dealer Parts guy:

Tip for the day, xB wipers
https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57119

grizzly_choppers says that there are two types of Scion wiper blades. One with "silver clips" on the ends and one without. He says that the ones without the clips look better. He posts pics.

Could the wipers with the clips avoid the stated problem of scratching paint above the windshield?

RPM

SciFly

I meant, those plastic blocks that are -inside- the Scion blade, which hook onto it's riveted pivot pin. If a person wants to re-use them, they -are- better quality and fit than the univeral clip kit which comes with the Nekoi Tokyo AERO brand bladesets.

BTW: I showed all of this to Ray next door. He said: 'Well, how about just get me some plain, new blades?"

OK, Ray!

From Advance Auto Parts again, I got for his car the
Trico 20-1 Exact Fit bladesets.
$8 each. They fit right in easy as pie. No loose inserts to fiddle with.

They wipe the windshield as efficiently as the originals.
They have splines with the notches -barbed and splayed-.
NO way these can ever slip out and ruin your paint.
Very good value and they look like stock almost exactly


Sidebar: I am finding now there is no actual need for 20" blades.
I swapped my 20" Nekoi's for an 18" pair. The shorter blades in this
fake carbon fiber aero design look better for being shorter (imo)
And no useful sweep area is really lost. They lay better and look better and
I see it all just fine now.


I have the blades in hand from Ray's RS2. They are time bombs just like mine and just like Wellie's. Three for three caught out in time. Good thread that M started!
thanks, M!

SciFly

First look at his fine thread clues to me this: that those silver clips which "don't look so good" are probably intended to prevent exactly the failure which we're seeing in our scion blades.

I'll Gadwin a few excerpts from grizzly_chopper's thread linked from the quote box above.

one:


two: the silver clip provided with the rubber replacement kit. what does it really do? It looks like.. maybe to ensure the splines stay put?


three, the after-result looks like stock! but is is "safe"?:


these three photo-quotes are all grizzly's writing and from his picture thread found at the link above. thanks go to grizzly_chopper

SciFly

Here's the way I reported this problem to Scion USA this afternoon.
I went to Scion.com and used the java chat feature.
These images are photographs of the java app. window.
They are made by a freeware program called Gadwin Printscreen.
Gadwin is handy, stable, bugless and -free-. Get from Gadwin.com

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1

2

3

4

5

SciFly

Bottom line commentary from me to all reading:

=our Scions are excellently made
=nothing is totally bug free/perfect
=it is no great sacrifice for us to buy our own wiper blades to solve the scratch risk
without loading down Scion's warranty claim dept.
Less than $16 local cost and one minute to install
=we need not carp to Scion for free blades but, this is your right to ask for safe blades.
Am sure they'll make good for anyone who asks.

This thread turned out to be a good thing. It saves Scion thousands in warranty claims
for damaged paint and saves us the disgusting heartbreak of an unexpected wiper blade failure.

wins all around for everybody

(yaaaaay)


particular thanks go to the man who started this thread in the first place.
He saved a lot of hassle for a lot of people.

kudos to the Great Mazinga

Let's give him a tickertape parade right now

































always relax and laugh for a day well done.
I like smiley gifs! cheers now, and g'night

Tomas

Here's a pic to go with my earlier one (with the stock Toyota/Scion escaping rib).



This is the INSERT I replaced my Scion inserts with, and sounds like the Trico's you used, SciFly. Tiny, tiny barbs that keep the stainless steel ribs from escaping. These blades have a 'teflon coating' on them so that they 'slide easier' across the windshield.

The price at NAPA was somewhere around $4 (certainly under $5) each and they slide right in with a perfect fit.

Except for the INCREDIBLY ****, they look like the 'clipless' ones grizzly_chopper suggested in the other thread. :D

SciFly

Good! even cheaper. Yes, the tricos and most I saw in the Advance Auto local store (it's like AutoZone, etc.) are the full blade assemblies and are not really necessary. I understand more now, thanks to Tom.

Inserts will be cheaper and just fine. The key point is now well covered. Not a one of us here should have reason to worry about getting nicked if we read and react to common sense.

all do

TJandBOXCARWILLIE

Bump for a great thread.

SciFly

hah, thanks, TJ.

bumps are better than (paint) grinds

xB_Nutt

Bump from another saved paint job xB owner...(I know everybody else probably knows this already, but just in case)

Clang

Crud.... I discovered this Forum too late ,
I have a 2006 XB and had the metal insert walk out of the *Yep*....passenger side wiperblade and scratched the paint above the windshield....I had that repaired at the dealership at my cost. 2 months later (2 days ago) another insert started walking out again, I caught that before it walked out far enough to scratch the paint again. The dealer and the Scion customer service call center acted like this was new to them both times I talked to them.

Tomas

Give 'em this link as proof that it has been brought to their attention many times by multiple people, and that repair job should have been WARRANTY since it was due to the failure in normal service of a part supplied by Toyota/Scion. *sigh*

Tomas

saddlesore

A BIG THANKYOU TO ALL!!!!!
Just checked both of our toasters....and they both are working out of the rubber end pieces that are meant to hold the metal strip in,,, off to NAPA in the morning..
thanks again..
saddlesore

Spiderbox

i just recently found this problem on my car and the windshield is badly scratched up. i havent examined the paint on the top of the car yet but i would like a new windshield since i also had a cracked windshield.

the windshield looks like it was from a rock since i did the pen test, dealer refused to replace windshield under warranty so im gonna try asking for a replacement for my scratched up windshield. lets see if that works. :D

FitzBox

Thanks to all. I replaced my wiper inserts with the NAPA 60-2041 with no problems. The dealer wanted to sell me the wiper assembly with the inserts for almost $30. I bought both inserts for $10. Do the math.


FitzBox

Tomas

AND the inserts you got were much bette than what you get from the dealer, anyway.

Tom