Worn out and damaged windshield wipers can be an easy thing to forget about until you find yourself in bad weather. When wipers are worn, they are unsafe due to the fact that they streak your windshield. Such streaks cause headlight glare, making night driving increasingly dangerous.
Maintaining the life of your wipers is simple and easy. Here are a few helpful tips:
- The best way to clean wipers is with an alcohol pad. It removes any grease, wax, and grime that may have built up on them.
- Check the wiper arm. If the spring is weak in the wiper arm, the wiper won’t have enough force in it to clean the windshield.
- In winter, pull your wipers away from the windshield when you park your car for the night. If you were to turn the wiper on with the wiper frozen against the windshield, the rubber squeegee will rip right off of the wiper. Make sure you properly scrape the windows before turning on the wipers because it could ware the wipers down unevenly.
o Trick: If you find you have forgotten to pull the wipers off the windshield the night before, a simple pinch slide of the fingers around the squeegee part of the wiper can remove most of the ice build-up on the wiper. You will want to be careful as you do this. This trick can be done, but remember that the wiper is fragile since it has been outside in the freezing cold all night. You could crack the plastic part of the wiper if you are too rough with it. So when you pinch the rubber part of the blade to slide the ice off, think as if you are pinching the last bit of toothpaste out of its container.
- Maintain the proper alignment of your wiper. Your windshield wipers need to be centered. If they are set too high or too low, it could hit the body of the car and damage or bend the wiper, decreasing the wipers effectiveness.
- Rubber on the wiper works as a squeegee. If you have a chip or crack in the windshield of your vehicle, it could damage the wiper blade by tearing or ripping it.
- If you live in dry locations or during summer months, take time to check your wipers for dry rotting. Dry rotting is caused by the UV rays from sunlight and from locations with very dry air, such as Arizona.
Finally, don’t forget that the best time to replace wipers is in autumn and spring. Replacing them at these times ensures that you will have a fresh pair to take you through the winter and rainy season.
About Carol Leginus
Carol Leginus is responsible for the administration/maintenance of Uni-Select public websites. She supports e-commerce, e-business and data warehouse initiatives.
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