Sorry to start another thread on somthing that has already been covered a few times, i just dont want to spend £45 on the wrong thing!
I'm thinking of changing to silicone wiper blades because generally people seem to consider them to be the best. i just dont know which ones to get, should i get PIAA 18'' sporza/19'' curved or would the cheaper xopc straight with spoiler blades be as good?
Xopc also do a flat design blade which arguably looks better, but am i right in thinking that this probably wouldnt touch the screen at the end of the passenger side blade
They miss a little of the window on the passenger side but nothing major and they don't bounce across the window at motorway speeds like the originals. I've only had them for a few weeks but so far so good and a lot cheaper than PIAA ones.
I put PIAA on mine and don't like them . I prefer the £4 set I got from Lidl.
The PIAA ones smear the window and aren't strong enough to clear the screen of the much that builds up on a fast motorway drive.
oh dear... i've ordered some PIAA ones at a cost of £40, they havent come yet but i'll review them when they do incase it is of use to anyone else who might come accross this thread in the future, One of the things that made me decide against a flat blade design is that you can't buy refills for them (as far as i'm aware) and without any decent info the xopc blades i looked at i thought i'd just go for the PIAA as they seem pretty highly regarded by most
I bought cheap flat blades from Tesco! And found that I got a better patter by putting the 18" blade on the passenger side, and then slightly "bent" the and to get a better contact with the screen at the far end. However be careful if you try this - bend it too much and it not maintain contact all the way across the screen......
Also got the Tesco flat blade wipers to try out, but my problem is as it does not have full screen contact, my auto rain sensors are not working properly as the blade done not touch that part. So if you dont have auto sensors they are great if you can live with it not having full contact, otherwise better sticking with the normal blades.
If you don't get on with them Crofty I'll buy them off you, mine have been on for a couple of years now & have lost the 'beading' effect, they still wipe the screen extremely well though. I use Rain X on the front & side windows to help keep the rain moving as well
I bought some flat blade wipers for my Cooper D. They were bad, the passenger blade did not sit flush with the screen, and the drivers blade had a tendancy to skip along the screen on the up stroke especially at higher speeds, they squeaked, and smeared.
They looked good, but performed badly at their main task of being wipers. I replaced them with traditional bosch wipers, which work as well as the originals.
I can't justify huge amounts on wipe blades. I'm going with your inkling and buying some top Bosch ones for like £12. From past experience (on other cars) they seriously do the job, although I do like the sound of these silicon ones!
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Silicone wiper blades 
I'm going to order some soon, £20 on ebay! 
