It is all about cost. If you figure that they saved $0.50 per truck, and sold 5million trucks, that is $2.5m dollars that they saved over the years. Meets minimum safety requirements, and saves money. That's how they stay in business.

 

I used s Ford.....22" blades...WW-2230. Covered so much better then the ones it called for.

 

Put on the 24" rain x blades and was pleased with the amount of glass it covered! Great upgrade... Thanks.

 

When it comes to wiper blades... "size does matter"... and 24" is longer and better than stock blades!!!

 

We will all have to agree to disagree on the wiper size issue. Part of engineering is definitely cost management but in reality, you're talking pennies difference between 20's and 22's or 24's not $.50.

At any rate, I think I hit gold with the Trico NeoForm beam blade upgrades. I continue to like them. Very quiet and wipe well. I looked - they come in all the sizes mentioned in this string...including the CORRECT SIZE - LOL!!

 

I installed 26" blades because they didn't have 24's in stock. They work great, good window contact and no lifting while driving at highway speeds in the rain. They just barely fit within the confines of the windshield. I'm sorry, but the stock wipers were a joke.

 

explain then how the engineers missed the headbolt & oil cooler problems on the 6.0]

 

Holy crap! those must be huge! did you put them on both the driver and passenger side? I put 22" ones on in the spring...now i wanna go get some 26" ones and put these small ones on my 95 lol.

 

I just read this whole thread (wasn't here when it was started) and can't believe you guys missed the totally obvious issue with these longer blades. Since they are at rest most of the time, they are catching 8" more air, causing more aero drag on the truck, affecting the fuel mileage . I thought you guys knew a little something about these trucks, now I'm not so sure . I'll bet you're feeling pretty silly about now.

 

What! That explains why i get such poor gas mileage...I was worried I was starting to think it may be the bigger tires and the lift!

 

Oil cooler issues are related to the crappy Ford Gold coolant. Seeing as how International uses a different spec, one can understand COST issues of Ford running more than one type of coolant.

The head bolts do their job, they do it as designed. What you fail to realize is there are additional factors at play for HG issues. The deck flatness of the heads, the gaskets, and the workmanship when assembling the motor. Should any one of those fail to meet the standards the HGs will fail. There are even people reporting HG failures when using studs. Why?? Cause the heads were not checked properly or they were using poor quality gaskets.

BTW anything built by humans will eventually break down it's just the nature of things.

 

That's why I have summer and winter blades. 10 inchers for summer 26ers for winter. Change em out when I change my tires over to winter air. See the winter air is cooler there for more dense which makes for heavier tires.

Now everyone knows why you get worse mileage in the winter

 

I've got a lund visor... Not too worried about the extra 8 inches of wiper that will be exposed when I do this..

In all seriousness though there are folks who would subscribe to this thinking. They remove their mirrors and have these huge air dams etc.. All do gain .015 MPG.. just kidding but I'd never try any of it.

 

But the extra down force create by the larger wipers helps hold your truck on the road during those high speed runs. Otherwise, your truck would be trying to lift off of the ground once you hit somewhere around Mach 0.13874. It is well worth the extra drag.

 

Now that is funny right there. Next time I'm going to make a high speed run, I'll be sure to pick up some 26"s. Figure I can just take them off when not needing to keep all 4 wheels firmly on the ground.