Where did all the wiper inserts go?

[JLT]

Now that the rainy season is here in California, I went shopping for wiper inserts for my three cars. I went to Pep Boys, Kragen, and Auto Zone. Nobody sells wiper inserts anymore! I get reasons like "Well, we want you to know that the arms go bad after a while, and they need replacing, too" or (my favorite) "The arms aren't shiny any more and you want shiny arms, right?"

At first, I wanted to put this topic in Free Speech and rant about how the parts business is trying to rip us off again, but I'm beyond that now (I think). But the question remains: Is this an industry-wide thing, or is there any supplier who will sell you just the insert? One of the factors, of course, is that I highly doubt that the existing wiper arms and springs are stock, and hence it's a crapshoot to buy the inserts without seeing if they really fit the arm/spring assembly. So mail-order may not be an option.

[bretski]

If you mean just the rubber piece of the blade assembly, you're absolutely correct. I haven't seen them around (sold separately) for quite a while now. You are stuck buying an entire blade.

[hambone]

I've noticed that too. More profit.
Autozone said they keep them behind the counter...

[tractoman]

Try Napa, it's the only place I've found them in recent years.

[bus71]

Costco used to sell packs of Trico blades plus inserts. I"ll have to check to see if they still do. They were a good deal.

[skin daddio]

autozone has refills for anco wipers, few bucks. bosch at my flaps.

[JLT]

autozone has refills for anco wipers, few bucks. bosch at my flaps.

Autozone was of the places in Sacramento that I checked (two stores, in fact).

I ended up buying the complete Bosch wiper and spring assembly from Kombi Haus ... might as well keep my local Vee-Dub shop in business ... except for the Toyota Corolla wipers, which I had to get from Toyota because they had a weird method of attaching them to the arm.

[dtrumbo]

I saw some at NAPA just the other day. I asked the guy behind the counter if they were being phased out and he said 'sorta'. He explained that a lot of manufacturers have individual wiper blade designs that don't lend themselves to replacing just the inserts. They'd have to have a diffferent insert for practically every new model on the market. He said to expect to see the selection of refills dwindle as time marches on. I'm glad all the car companies have jumped on the 'Green' bandwagon by offering Hybrid's that are priced 50% higher, yet get only marginally better mileage than the non-hybrid's they sold last year. In return they now design wiper blades that require replacement rather than allowing a simple refill of the part that actually wears. Yep, that's green, uh huh!