My experience with silicone blades is that they've always gotten streaky and tend to chatter and plane over the water more often than not -- almost like it needs more pressure on the blade to function properly. This becomes even more of a problem at highway speeds. I've tried the Anco and Rain-X branded silicone blades, but not PIAA or SilBlade.
The wiper blade that I'd highly recommend -- if you want to spend the $money$ that is -- would be the
Valeo Ultimate Wiper Blade. They used to cost $40 apiece (+ $8 shipping) but you could get $10 knocked off of each with the
volvoxcdeal coupon code. I don't think the code works anymore though, because their price is $29.95 all the time now. You're still talking nearly $60 for a pair of blades, so it's definitely not for the faint of wallet. :shock:
I used these on my '01 and it was beautiful -- no ugly multi-part, hinged assemblies, just one long contact swipe produced by a low profile memory metal frame. One caveat I will say, though, is that the blade sometimes left behind a thin layer of rubber residue at the top and bottom of the sweep and that would cause it to chatter across the windshield and keep accumulating more residue. As soon as it happens, be sure to clean it off the glass, or you could ruin the contact surface of the blade.
Another thing I was worried about was somebody noticing the nice expensive blades I had installed and decide that they would steal them. As a result, my paranoid side left the old OEM blades in the cargo area "just in case". :?
I'm still debating whether to replace the new RAV's wipers with the Ultimates, but I'll probably end up just waiting until this first set wears out. We'll see.
One thing I will also say, is that
no one makes a good aftermarket replacement for the RAV's rear wiper -- such a pain in the butt to remove the insert and try to put in another one (that usually doesn't fit perfectly) that it's not even funny. It's just easier to buy the OEM one from Toyota.
