Here*s my report on the Bosch Envision wiper blades. I*ll precursor my report by saying I HATED the OEM blades. They were chattering/choppy and skipping on the return path, and so causing them to be annoyingly loud and not cleaning well. Winter in NorCal means rain, so after some light-moderate rain this week I decided to go with the Bosch Envision 24OE and 18OE (big shout out to Shiggy for posting his purchase experience!!!!), seemingly selling exclusively from AutoZone, for $29 EACH!! (yes I know bloody expensive). Used adaptor #6. IMMEDIATELY the difference was apparent. Clean wipe and silent.
But there*s more. So decided to head to Tahoe this weekend, and it so happened this weekend the mountain pass was afflicted with a snow storm. Not too cold as temperatures hung around 32 degrees, but heavy snow on the main mountain road, and icy rain fore and aft of the pass. Driving conditions were pretty bad on the mountain, with only 4wd vehicles with snow tires or cars with snow chains on the drive wheels being allowed (there were checkpoints and cars being turned back). FYI I did not have snow tires or chains, just the stock 19* Toyo A36 tires.
Anyway that*s just the backdrop to tell of the wiper and car performance. Thank God I changed those wipers before going into the snow storm, as they performed excellently. Clean wiping through everything. I was telling my wife in the car how fortunate we were not to have those horrible OEMs, as visibility was already VERY bad on the return journey, and having those skipping blades also would have been a death sentence (I*m exaggerating but you understand what I mean). In the heavy rain the we got on the Western path of the storm, the Bosch*s also did the job. Gave me peace of mind (proper visibility), and peace of ear (no damn chattering!!!!!). Though an expensive cost for peace.
And just a quick word about the CX-5*s performance in the snow. The road was generally plowed (it wasn*t always clean), but snowfall was heavy in the afternoon. We had no grip or tracking issues. The car went steadily and where I wanted it to go. Also I did NOT feel slippage of the front forcing the rear to kick in; this is due to the Mazda predictive AWD programming that sends more power to the rear pre-emptively when it detects certain conditions, in my case: cold, incline, wipers in use. Very reassuring. We didn*t go off the main roads into deep snow so can*t say how it would have behaved in that case. Don*t think I would have trusted these tires or this car in the deep stuff though.
Anyway, Bosch Envisions, seal of approval granted.