Ramtalk goes online

We just launched Ramtalk, a dedicated forum for Dodge truck owners – new and old (the trucks, that is, though we welcome new and old owners too.)

I hope you’ll visit — and post — today. If we get a good start, we’ll have a vibrant community of Dodge truck owners, enhancing the Allpar community.

We also expect to have two new surprise features launching on Friday.

Trico wipers

One problem with minivans is their absurdly long wiper blades, 28 inches long on our 2006 Town & Country. I’ve noticed that shorter blades seem to be less finicky and last longer; and that cheap wiper blades seem to have gotten worse than they used to be, possibly as our windshields got bigger.

First, a quick complaint – I find it very wasteful to need to buy a new wiper blade holder each time I buy a new blade. What happened to selling just the blades?

Now, I’ve tried every brand locally available. Chrysler’s own blades work best, not surprisingly, but they are expensive from our local dealer, with their high markup. I tried Bosch, Duralast, Anco, and a few others — not just the low lines, but also the higher lines. None were any good for any length of time, the Bosch possibly being the worst of the bunch (and among the priciest).

J.P. Joans suggested I try Trico, but they’re not sold around here, as far as I can tell. Some weeks later he mentioned a friend of his had started a mail order firm, https://www.wipers123.com/ — so I tried it out. The prices aren’t cheap but then, wipers are pretty pricey, especially now that you can’t buy just the blades.

Jeff, who runs the place, said that he had very, very few warranty issues on the Tricos; he’s very happy that’s the brand he settled on. They ONLY sell Trico. Jeff wrote to me, “I can honestly tell you that we are shocked in a positive way at how few warranty issues and/or complaints we’ve had. … Their application guide is very accurate (we suggest the correct sizes over 99.9% of the time) and as mentioned above, their performance and quality is excellent.”

I bought the standard, cheap Tricos which are very similar to the Chrysler ones on our 300M. They snapped on more easily than any wiper refill I can remember; they just glided smoothly into place with a gentle click when they seated. Unlike other cheap plastic mounts, even on the pricey Bosch, they fit the wiper arm perfectly. The blade carrier seemed heavier than the ones I was replacing, and stiffer.

They work perfectly – no noise, no stuttering, no squeaking, no slipping.

We’ll see how they are in six months (the expected lifetime of just about any blade); and I might even experiment next time with the Trico Tech or Neoform. In the meantime I can play with Trico View, a sort of Rain-X treatment. Wish I’d had that on my 1976 Valiant back in the day — the wipers had a tendency not to work in the rain. (They worked fine in dry weather, and, in case you wondered, I rebuilt the wiper motor myself and that fixed it.) But in the meantime I know what wipers I’m buying, and where I’m buying them.