A Comprehensive Guide on how to check the dates..… know your product
Stay Safe and Drive Carefully
Any reputable blade should have a date code on it, thus allowing you to easily view when the rubber was cured, users can then ensure the blade is fitted in a timely manner in order to ensure the optimal performance and longevity of the product. Here at Matador, our OEM products are coded to enable this.
The image above shows what you will see on a Matador blade, this is a date code for the rubber cure date. If you look along the dates you will see that a number of those dates have already been doted whereas those dates in the future are still plain so on this particular blade the cure date was month 4 2024.
This image shows additional info that we have on our blades, this is the length that the blade is cut to and the cavity that produced it, this provides additional information for us should we require it.
Different blade manufacturers will recommend different lengths of time to store completed blades, ours is 3 years. Given that we are turning the majority of our blades approximately every 3-6 months, customers can store our blades for a couple of years before selling/using them.
The shelf life of rubber will be influenced and varied by the environment of storage, such as temperature, humidity, dust etc. If it is stored in a normal storage environment with normal room temperature, we suggest storing the rubber for a maximum of 3 years.
Windscreen wiper blades should be changed every 3-12 months depending on mileage and conditions, so check the dates of your blades before fitting and stay safe.