Wiper blades and upgrades

Does anyone else have a problem with their wipers? Mine were horrible; they left streaks and foggy patches (I know its not "fog" but that's what it looks like). When it is at its worst, its actually harder to see after the wipers wipe across the rainy windshield.

I cleaned the outside of the windshield several times using different products: windex, vinegar, alcohol and whatever they have at the gas station pumps. The inside of the windshield is clean and fog free when this happens btw. I even clean the wiper rubber. Everytime it rains I have to pull over to the nearest gas station and use their pump-mounted window cleaners and this helps for a little while, but later (even in the same day) it goes back to crap.

I upgraded (a little) to Bosch blades. I replaced the whole blade, not just the rubber refill. Again, these seemed better for a while, like a few weeks, and now the crappy patches are back again.

After doing all this I noticed that the same patch keeps appearing: in the middle of the driver's half of the window. This is a little hard to explain, but here goes: You know where the passenger side blade stops at the top of its motion? That's where the patch begins and extends left from that point, and its big enough to scatter a lot of light when it rains at night. this is annoying and dangerous on surface streets when headlights from other cars point at me.

One theory, my wiper blades just suck.
Another is that the spring in the wiper arm is weak and not able to apply enough pressure at the top of the driver's side blade.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks
-Matt

 

RainX is your friend....

 

I've seen rainX go bad and make even more of a mess too though.

I guess I neglected to mention that the wipers used to work just fine. I started to notice that the suck about 6 months ago. And it hasn't rained a lot so I haven't had a whole lot of time to experiment.

I know that my blades CAN work and have worked before; I just want them to continue working properly before I add anything else like RainX or Aquapel.

 

I'm not really sure exactly how new windshields come prepared, but I have seen many slightly older cars have horrible visibilty when it rains (the windshield wipers just smear instead of wipe). My hunch is that the outside finish of the windshield starts to wear off (go dull). Rain-x will fix this. And yes, for some reason sometimes after awhile a rain-xed window will get weird spots on it during a rain, but it's nothing another rain-xing won't fix. I basically look at it like putting a coat of polish on my windshield (which is essentially what you are doing).

Now my thoughts about old windshields is just a theory, so I make no promises, it's just kind of what I noticed. It just seems very similar to the paint on your car. If you go a long time without waxing, rain starts to spread instead of beed up and roll off.

/edit

And one more comment, rain-x + bugs + wipers = suck. I usually try to avoid using wipers if rain-xed.