Changing Wiper Blades
The other day I was changing windshield wiper blades on my trusty Japanese daily driver and as I was pulling a new wiper blade out of the box the blade came in I ran across a blank sticker that had been packed with the wiper blade. Upon closer examination the sticker was the same type they place inside your windshield after you have an oil change. One of those stickers that are supposed to have a date and miles written on it that indicates when your next oil change is due. Apparently, I was suppose to write the date I installed the new wipers on the sticker and place the sticker on the inside of my
windshield in order to remind me that a year later I was suppose to replace the blades I had just installed.
Now, I am no mechanic. I can pump my own gas and put air in my own tires but that’s about it. However, even with my limited mechanical abilities I can figure out that when it rains and I turn on my windshield wipers and those very blades reduce my visibility to that of the nuclear submarine as it glides under the polar ice cap my wiper blades need to be changed. I really don’t think I need to place a sticker on the inside of my windshield telling me it’s time to change wiper blades when that sticker becomes the only thing recognizable as I peer through the windshield while I’m driving in a rain storm.
Apparently there is a real need for these types of automotive service reminders. According to an article I recently read nearly 80 percent of automobiles being operated within the United States need some sort of service or maintenance ranging from low levels of windshield wiper fluid all the way to major brake service. Scheduled maintenance is now the keyword in automobile ownership and in order to get us into the routine taking our cars in for service we are now suppose to plaster little stickers all over the inside of our front windshields.
This is not an easy concept for a former British sports car owner. Scheduled maintenance was not something in the vocabulary of a MG owner. However, the term frequent breakdowns were. An MG owner didn’t need to fret about scheduling a date to replace the anti-freeze because the first hot day of summer would cause all the engines coolant to shoot out of various points along the engines cooling system and find its way onto the road below. There was no reason to schedule brake maintenance because the master brake cylinder rarely worked properly meaning the brakes were rarely placed in a position where they had to actually function.
The fact that the parts on 80 percent of the cars on our streets have lasted long enough to need some sort of maintenance means the old term “They don’t build them like they use too” maybe a good thing.
