Just went through the whole wiper blade replacement hassle last month. My original rear wiper blade was dragging badly. Just replaced it with this: Bosch A 282 H 280mm/11" rear wiper blade Works great, snaps right in with no needed additional clips or mods. Works great so far - no more dragging.
I ran into the same problem--ordered Bosch OE 26 and 19 ICON wiper blades on Amazon (which are the correct blades for our A3/S3s as confirmed on the Bosch website), and couldn't get them to fit my car. Adapter piece was wrong. One of the blades came with no extra adapters, and the other came with multiple adapters, but none of them were correct for this car. It was a bit of a pain in the butt, but I ended up carefully disassembling my stock blades and removing the rubber insert, and then doing the same to the Bosch units, and then reassembling my stock wipers with the new Bosch rubber inserts. Now they're great--sooooo much better than the stock setup. Cleans well with no chatter.
I've had good luck with the Bosch Excel+ blades.
I just replaced mine yesterday, same ones you got (Bosch Icon 18OE & 26OE). Popped the right adapter on, and were on the car in minutes. It took a bit, but I tracked down the Bosch A282H for the rear. It's on the way, so I'll know in a couple days if it fits, based on the comments on Amazon, it should. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0042ETBEQ/ I read somewhere that the OEM blades for the R were made by Bosch - and after comparing the two side by side, I'd have to say they look almost identical. The only major difference was in the clip, but that's to be expected since the Icon's have to use adapters to fit multiple vehicles.
Just to make it crystal clear: you can only use the Bosch Icon OE blades that have the "Clearmax 2365" badge on the front of the package. These blades come with a #4 adapter, the older ones without the logo don't, and there is no way to clip/mod them to make them fit.
I can confirm the Bosch Icon 18OE & 26OE with ClearMax365 fit perfectly. They come with a #4 adapter which you can use with the blade. Fits perfect, no trimming of other adapters. These blades get great reviews and are specially treated to hold up/wor better under snow/ice, cold, sun, etc. Mfr. claims they last 40% longer than Rain-X, Trico, other blades. Anyways, they work great.
I personally love the Bosch Icons. They are much more expensive than standard blades but they work much better and last longer, especially in colder climates.
I put a set of Bosch Icon blades on a month or so ago. I think they were 26/18. I bought whatever the parts store catalog called out for size. I may be incorrect. The Icons have been working much better than the factory wipers. No streaks or lines.
When I bought my car, it had ****ty wipers so I replaced them with relatively expensive Bosch wipers but I was always disappointed with the quality. Then I replaced those with the genuine VW wipers from the dealer that scotts13 mentioned and it's insane how much better they perform. They were cheaper, too.
They came out to $25 each at the dealership. I'm not impressed with them either. They are much stiffer than the Bosch Icons are. I have Icons on the BMW & they are still more supple after almost a year compared to the new VW blades.
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