The rubber on my Civic's rear wiper arm tore off, so I went and bought a new 12" Rain-X blade. When I went to remove the old one, I noticed it was bolted directly to the arm, contrary to any other wiper blades I've ever seen. I had to actually remove the steel pin pressed into the new arm, as that was the hole the bolt need to go through when compared with the old one. An obviously unnecessary step, I think. When I attached the new blade, it should fit inside the arm somewhat so that pressure is applied evenly along the blade. Instead, the outer most tip of the blade is not even touching the glass. On my way home from work one day, I noticed a similar Civic and stopped to check it out, and it appeared to have the same setup, except the blade wasn't bolted, there was a pin that was pressed in to hold it there, more of a permanent solution, indicating that blade replacement is impossible.

So my question is this, is my wiper arm missing a piece? Or is this a really poor design on Honda's part? Is there a specific brand of blade that works better for this application?

Thanks!

 

Woops, sorry about the huge image size, next time I'll resize it first so that it fits in most people's browsers.

 

Yes, the answer is that you only have to replace the RUBBER part of the arm. They are about 2-3 dollars from the dealer.

In this case, since you bought the Rain-X rubber and arm already, remove the Rain-X rubber from the arm (slide it off) and put said rubber onto the stock Honda arm. That should do it, unless it really doesn't fit, in which case you should go get the OEM rubber. You'll also want to transfer over the slim metal stiffeners to the new rubber, if you haven't done this already (looks like it, from the picture).

The above assumes, of course, that you had the original OEM rear wiper arm on your Civic originally, and not an aftermarket one.

 

Thanks for your help, that's exactly what I was afraid someone was going to say. Unfortunately the car didn't come with the factory blade installed, otherwise I would have just purchased a refill. Oh well, off to the wrecker's I go I guess.

Thanks again!