She drives a legacy and you drive an impreza right?

Carl

Maybe it's environmental based on where the vehicles are driven,
parked, whatever.
Try trading vehicles for a week and see if the hazy glow follows the
vehicle ????????

This is crazy, I know, but, I have a 2006 Outback 3.0 VDC, and, my wife had
a 2001 Forester, now a 2007 Forester, and...my wipers smear and hers
didn't/don't...

Both cars are driven under the same conditions, spend their nights in
the same garage, etc etc... so I don't think there's something different
in that regard. Besides, they're not strictly "mine" and "hers," we
drive each about equally, depending on whether we need the extra space
in the wagon for hauling stuff.

I had smeary windshield wipers. Here's what works for my STi, and prior to
that, on my '02 WRX:

. Cleaning the windshield:

Use pure, clean water with a touch (smidgen!) of soap for grime, and a
healthy dollop of either borox or vinegar. Buy a *new!* window
washer/squidgee with a straight edge on its rubber. When you store it,
store it rubber-side up and keep everything away from it to prevent any
bending or creasing in it. If you get a nasty crease in your squidgee
rubber, it's useless. Really.

Rub down the windshield with the washer side so all visible specks of dirt
dust and grime are loose. Spin the washer around, and carefully and with a
smooth motion, wipe it across the windshield in horizontal stripes.

Warnings:

i. If you hear ANY squeaking whatsoever, you need more liquid on the
windshield or you need to move your squidgee faster.

ii. You will need to overlap your squidgee strokes a good 1/4 to 1/3 of the
width of the squidgee because of the curve of Subaru windshields.

iii. After you're done with the squidgee, please wash off the washer side,
too.

iv. DO NOT use ANY cleaning product on the outside of your windshield!

v. DO NOT use ANY cleaning product harsher than a water+vinegar solution to
wipe your windshield wiper blades down.

Anyway, you may have to wash your windshield like this five or six times: in
the right light, you'll be able to see either rainbow colours behind your
wipes, or a clean windshield. Keep going until the rainbow colours are
completely gone. These are dried oil and petroleum products that have
likely ingrained themselves into any microscopic scratches in your
windshield over years of using your windshield wipers in nasty weather.

Then, keep going until water sheets on it and doesn't bead anymore.

Finally, wipe down your windshield wipers with a paper towel moistened with
the cleaning liquid you used.

On the inside, it's almost impossible to use a real window cleaning
technique. Luckily, you can get nearly as good results with Windex or Eagle
1 and some serious elbow grease.

Take two good-sized sheets of paper towel, times two. You'll need a wet and
a dry, follow-up wiper.

Apply the product to the inside of the windshield and wipe down the most
obvious dirt and make sure you don't let any of the drips get down to the
dashboard. That would suck. You do NOT have to wipe it dry with the first
rubdown.

Roll up your second, dry, follow-up wiper and dry-wipe the windshield.

Now comes the hard, annoying part. You'll need just the right light for
this: you'll need to be able to see the inevitable smudges left behind by
the less-than-perfect glass cleaner you used. Usually at night with a
bright off-centre light is best..

Over the entire window surface, you're going to need to polish with a
circular motion. The more fresh paper towel you use, the better you'll be
able to polish. Polish everywhere. Carefully, firmly go over the entire
inside surface. You'll never get it all, but with enough polishing you'll
be able to get it clean enough that the human eye will at least be happy.

It is *NOT POSSIBLE* to manually clean autoglass that's been exposed to
fingers or human skin oils and the crap sprayed up by other cars, to
perfection. The best you can do is sheeting water, a nearly-perfect
windshield wiper cycle, and better visibility than 99.999% of all the other
people out there on the road.

After all.. *they* just live with their nasty, dirty windshields and dump
windex all over them and wonder why their windows aren't as clean as the
t.v. tells them they should be.

Try using some rainx, it really helps make the water bead off your
windshield.  I found no smeary mess when I did that.

Been there with the same problem.
I got Subaru to fit new blades.
and dumped the new Bosch blades just
fitted to cure the problem which had crept up.
No good.
I posted here looking for answers and tried most fixes
suggested.
I cleaned the screen with every solvent
I had in the garage...spent hours polishing
the screen with special glass cleaners...
tried every washer additive in the store.
Nothing worked, drove me mad.
Then I cracked it.
I bent the wiper arms forward a tad to increase
the blade pressure on the screen.
Bingo...problem solved.
In time the spring arm tensioners lose some tension
is my guess.
It worked and I'm happy!
4 yr old WRX BTW
SB