Alhamba Front wipers

[landsker]

I have, today, needed reviving with smelling salts (well, nearly!).
Our newly acquired 51 plate Alhambra came with rather worn front wipers so I decided that a new set was needed.
Off to the local motor factor I went and presenting the service book, asked for replacement blades to suit the model & chassis number.
Rather surprised to find the cost was so high - around 40 euros with a bit of discount.
Got home to find they were wrong - a "traditional" fit to the wiper arm with a clip thingy, whereas the fitting on the car's wiper arm was on a simple post which was secured by rotating the blade to bear against a retainer.
Trotted back, returned the wrong ones and took one of the blades in as a pattern.
No problem - in stock.
Then the parts chap keyed in the product code and did a double take. Keyed in again and whistled.
The list price of these is, inc IVA (VAT), at 18% is NINETY EUROS!
Come on - 90€ is around 78 quid at today's rates.
78 quid for a set of wiper blades - are they extracting the the urine?
The nice man was so shocked he gave me a 30% trade discount, so in the end I paid around 65 euros, but that, even for a Bosch labelled product - probably made in China for about a fiver - is seriously OTT

 

[Seatmann]

Holy kak! That's a hell of a price for flippin wipers. Do they come complete with gold arms?

 

[90landrover]

Hi. Just did a trawl for wiper blades in case I need some and most places are charging around £30-£35 for a pair including Bosch and Valeo irrespective of what year of vehicle. Think you should print out a couple of these pages and go back to the factor you bought them from and talk to him. Try wiperblades.co.uk.

 

[Viking]

Or try David at SERE Motors and get a set of replacement rubber for the existing ones. Cost a tenner.

 

[landsker]

The design does not allow for replacement rubbers.
The standard fitting Bosch Aerotwin wipers were around 40 euros - about 30 quid, it was the type which fit on a post not a hooked clip or similar, which were at the silly price.

 

[Viking]

Sorry to disappoint you, but the Alhambra does allow for rubber replacement. To the extent that Seat (and VW for the Sharan) make the replacement rubbers. And David at Sere Motors sells them for about a tenner a pair.

Part numbers are 1K0955429A and 1K0955429C on this drawing.