Replace and Fit Flexi Blade Windscreen Wiper Blades
This guide will walk you through how to fit flexi-blade windscreen wipers to your car. Flexi-blades are the new type of flexible windscreen wipers fitted to most cars after 2005. This guide uses Bosch AeroTwin blades as the replacement blade, but other flexi-blades have an almost identical fitting process.
Steps
- Pull the windscreen wiper away from the windscreen. The wiper arm is fitted with a spring, so only a small amount of force is required. When fully extended, they will stay away from the screen until you push them back. If the car's bonnet is in the way and prevents the wiper from being lifted all the way up, proceed to step 2.
- If your windscreen wipers lifted all the way up, you can skip straight to step 3. If your windscreen wipers cannot be raised all the way up, rest them down again as normal, jump in the car, turn the key to the first or second position, and then operate the windscreen wipers (you normally do not need the engine running for this). When the wipers are at around a 45 degree angle (pictured), quickly turn the key to the off position so that the wipers stop half-way through their motion. You should now be able to pull the windscreen wipers away from the screen fully.
- Now the old windscreen wipers can be removed. Pinch the serrated tabs (both sides of the wiper), and at the same time pull the wiper in the direction indicated by the red arrow. The wiper should pull away from the wiper arm (shown in the next step).
- With the wiper as pictured in this step, push the wiper up in the direction of the red arrow. You may have to rock the wiper slightly as there is a small catch at the top, but no force is required.
- The blade is now fully removed from the car, and you are just left with the wiper arm as pictured. You're Half-way there. Make a cup of tea, go on - CELEBRATE! :)
- Remove your new wiper from the packaging. Remove the clip from the windscreen wiper. To do this, grip the clip as indicated by the red arrows. Push the square tab situated between your fingers down, and then pull in the direction of the blue arrow. NOTE: The image shows the clip partially removed already. The square tab has already been pushed down to allow the clip to slide.
- Here is the clip completely removed from the new Bosch Aerotwin windscreen wiper blade.
- Now the new Bosch Aerotwin wiper blade can now be fitted to your car. Simply align the new blade with the wiper arm. The tab on the wiper arm marked with a red arrow pushes the flap marked with the blue arrow down, and then secures into place (as shown in the next step).
- Now that the top is securely in place as pictured, squeeze the lower tabs with your thumb and index finger, and then push them in the direction shown by the red arrow. The clips you are squeezing will lock the wiper blade into place.
- Here you can see the Bosch Aerotwin windscreen wiper secured into place. All that remains is to set the windscreen wiper back down to the windscreen. Just gently push the wiper blade, being careful to support it all the way back down.
- Finally, you should put your key back in and switch on your windscreen wipers once to put them back to their resting position if you had to follow step 2.
Tips
- You do not need any tools to complete this job. Just your own pair of hands, and 10 minutes of your time.
Warnings
- This job does not require excessive force at any stage. If you are having to use quite a bit of force at any point, double-check what you are doing. It's probably a clip that has not been pressed properly.
Things You'll Need
- Your own pair of hands
- Replacement flexi-blades to replace your old windscreen wiper blades
