Windshield wiper installation: 2000 SL2

Greetings all.

I just purchased a pair of TripleEdge windshield wipers to prepare my
2000 SL2 for winter. The wipers I have now are starting to smear a bit
in rain; don't want to take a chance what they'll do in snow or ice.
(I live in northeaster PA; fair amount of frozen precip most winters.)

My problem is there are no clear instruction in re installing the
wipers either on the package surrounding the wipers or in the Owner's
Guide.

First, I got the 22" blade for the driver's side and the 20" blade for
the passenger side, as per the spec book at the store where I
purchased them. The Saturn owner's manual says 21.5" for the driver's
side. Is that a problem? If so, I'm not sure what the answer is, since
there were no half-inch increments available in the wipers I looked
at.

Next, can anyone provide the Idiot's Guide version to changing the
wipers without causing damage to the mechanism. I hate like hell to
pay a mechanic to do it, but I don't want to try it myself without
some kind of guide or instructions.

Please forgive this request from a non-car guy, at least by the
standards of automotive newsgroups. Also, speaking of winter, does
anyone here recommend using Rain-Ex or one of the other
windshieild-coating solutions for winter driving? I've never done it,
but I know people who swear by it and tell me I should try it.

TIA,

Eric M

 

Those wipers they sell in stores are cheaper,but, a pain in the ass to put
on,Saturn wants $20.00 for 1 arm.I bought the store ones ,because I was sick
of the farting the old blades were making,it was the end of summer,so,i took
the cheep route.

 

....Saturn used to replace just the blades on my 97 (not the whole arm) about
once a year, when I'd remember to ask when getting the oil changed. I think
it was like maybe $15 for both installed and seemed like a good value...

 

It may be easier to just change the rubber part. ANCO makes ones that fit
oem with relatively easy to follow pictures on how to remove the old rubber
and install new. I've done it on 2 cars and it was easy (though neither was
a saturn)

 

Thanks for the advice, but I had the TripleEdge blades installed by a
mechanic yesterday when I took the car in for inspection and snow
tires. (Turned out I needed new front brakes too. Christmas shopping
will be kinda lean this year.)

They offered to install them for free, since they were doing so much
other work on the car.

Changing the rubber or whatever exactly is in the innards of the blade
arms would have been the next step. It was getting pretty bad. I held
out for the TripleEdge blades, though, because I've heard glowing
reports of their performance in winter.

Last winter---my first with the 2000 SL2---my biggest problem was the
windshield smearing and fogging up when I ran the wipers constantly. I
drove back from Ohio to eastern PA in a near-blizzard around the end
of January. The road conditions were bad, but I'm used to that, and
the car handled fairly well, even without winter tires.

What finally caused me to pull off I-80 and spend the night in a hotel
was that I could at times barely see out the windshield. I tried all
settings of the heater, defogger and defroster, with and without the
recirculation button activated. (Later I saw the owner's manual
recommends not to use recirculation in winter; in my case nothing I
did seemed to help much.)

We'll see how it goes. Thanks again to all who shared their knowledge
and advice.

Regards,

Eric M