If you haven’t bought your Four by Four to use as a Chelsea Tractor, the chances are that you’ve got some hard journeys lined up for it, and that means that you need at least better than average ancillary and safety equipment.
Think about tyres for example, you don’t want normal UK road tyres if you’re going to traverse the Sahara Desert, Mud plugging in tropical rainforests or exploring Alpine Glaciers. Even if you’re just using your Four by Four to pull a horsebox to a local county show, you’ll need some decent mud-plugging tyres if you’re not going to suffer the ignominy of needing to be pulled out by a tractor.
It’s weird how almost everyone can and does understand that fact, however they don’t think in the same terms about an equally critical safety component of their car, the Wiper Blades
Standard Wiper Blades are made with either a natural or synthetic rubber blade. The working temperature range of these rubbers is pushed to its limit even in weather which we regularly see in most areas of Europe. For example, rubber stiffens as temperatures drop below freezing, and in Scandinavian and Alpine winters the rubber stiffens so much that it cracks; rendering the wiperblade useless.
Furthermore a rubber wiperblade’s life is significantly shortened by the effects of Ozone and Ultra Violet Light. These break down the rubber’s structure and surface, causing a further loss in performance, and lowering the wiperblade’s ability to shake off water. This then aggravates its low temperature performance problems, because it allows water to stay on and even penetrate the wiperblade’s surface, so when it freezes, the rubber blade’s structure is further attacked and the wiperblade is often frozen to the windscreen.
At the opposite end of the temperature scale; Consider how hot the surface of your car can get in even a British summer, then imagine how much hotter it will get in tropical or even Mediterranean climates. Even in Britain, most of us have experienced Wiper Blades softening and then sticking to the windscreen in hot weather. Imagine what can happen in even moderately hot places.
Lastly, think about the difficult driving conditions you’ve bought your Four by Four for. Throwing up mud, stones, dirt, grit, sand and other abrasive debris. All these abrasive things will of course shorten the life of any wiperblade that’s having to wipe them off.
Even the very best rubber Wiper Blades, even when protected from all the perils of the climate still only offer a design life of about 500,000 cycles, and of course this is seriously shrunk both by those weather influences and by being subjected to the abrasive particles that are part of Four by Four life.
The good news is that Silicone Wiper Blades offer solutions to all these problems. With a working temperature range of -60°C to +200°C, these actually are the Best Windscreen Wipers for extreme conditions. In fact, they’ll still be working long after you and your Four by Four have given up the struggle. On top of that, they aren’t attacked by Ozone or Ultra Violet light, and because they have far better wear resistance, they have a life expectancyof about lots better at shrugging off the abrasive effects of Four by Four adventure conditions.
So if you’re searching for real High Performance Wiper Blades to equal the abilities of your Four by Four, don’t just look for a quite meaningless “Performance” Label. To get the Best Windscreen Wipers for all the extremes you can put your car through, make sure they have 100% Silicone blades, and beware of those crafty beggars who sneakily put a silicone coating on rubber Windscreen Wipers!