It's pretty fair to say we had a rather damp start to the year here in the UK, with many parts of the country under water for at least a month.

Dramatic headlines were commonplace in the press, such as this one from the BBC:

Parts of England have had their wettest January since records began more than 100 years ago, figures show.

As you can see from my trip to Reading's Oracle shopping centre, rivers were a little higher than usual. Reading was by no means the worst effected area either.


As a consequence of all the rain the wipers were working overtime and seemingly coming to the end of their life. The Goodyear Wiper Blades I 'fitted' a couple of years ago had never really fit quite right, a fraction away from fully engaging the retaining clip.

Alas, so near yet so far.

We all know that automatic wipers are perfect at selecting the wipe speed inversely proportional to the amount of rain being experienced, in this case it was a consistent drizzle so naturally supersonic was selected. When moving at 760mph it didn't take long for the passenger side wiper to jiggle itself loose, taunting me as it teetered on the end of the wiper arm loop threatening to jump ship. After three weeks of getting wet repositioning the blade I got a bit Basil Fawlty and decided enough was enough.


A friend suggested autobulbsdirect.co.uk, which seemed very reasonably priced. I scanned around the site for a while and came to the conclusion I needed a 20" (AR20U) and a 22" (AR22U) of the Bosch Retro-Fit Aero wiper blades. I ummed and ahhed a bit due to the size of the clipping cover, it did seem a little bulky, nevertheless I ordered a set. I managed to blag a 10% off code with a quick Google search too, which dropped the overall price down to £21.82, happy days.


I can't fault the service from autobulbsdirect.co.uk the wipers arrived promptly and well packaged. At the next break in rainfall I dashed out and set about fitting them.


The guide on the back of the box is quite clear, just a simple three step process; unclip the cover, slide the blade over the wiper arm hook and close the cover.




Contrary to my concerns when ordering, the clipping cover is actually quite a sleek design and in no way looks bulky. When installed the blades look very tidy, like an OEM fit option. Looking nice is one thing, but these wipers perform too, they are as near to silent as you can get. The whole of the blade is in contact with the screen resulting in a consistent wipe area - some wipers have sections where the blade lifts away from the screen slightly and doesn't fully clear the wipe area.

In my opinion aero blades are an absolute must for any vehicle, but the Bosch Retro-Fit Aero wipers do the job just that little bit better than others I have tried and as such I couldn't recommend them highly enough.