Also The World's Easiest Maintenance DIY (Porsche Project 8)

Something arrived in the mail from Rock Auto today!

"DIY" of course being "do it yourself." Being able to do ANYTHING yourself can be fun, cheaper, more expensive, frustrating, or really any emotion depending on how the job goes. In this case, windshield wiper replacement. Sure, you can pull into your local auto parts store and they'll do it for you, and in fact once I did this very thing since the friendly counter guy offered. But most of the time it's more fun to do it yourself. Also every time, I forget how to do it, because no matter how easy it is, or how "idiot-proof" it is, well, the world keeps making better idiots too, like me, when I have to look up a video or manual on how to do the blades again. 

Old Wiper Blades

Step One: Out With the Old

I can claim that if I did this job every day, the odds are much better that I'd remember how to do it, but wiper blades seem to be one of the replacement items that is just infrequent enough to make me forget how to do it. Maybe some really gung-ho types out there have a special calendar to track this info, or a phone app that goes DING-CHANGE YOUR BLADES!, or they change their wiper blades on a regular schedule. For the rest of us, and I'm willing to bet it's MOST of us, I'll guess that new wiper blade day comes around maybe every 3.8 years. This is totally scientific, based on analysis of millions of motorists around the world, taking into account the varied weather patterns, driving habits, and annual mileage of those millions of drivers, density of 88% chocolate, and the price of tea in China. 

Rotate the blade till you can see how it detaches

Squeeze these little tabs and away we go

Oh, sorry, I just made up that 3.8 year thing, let's every 3-4 years just for the heck of it. 

In the interests of research, I priced some wiper blades for my car, and at one local store found a single blade, 22 inches, for about 20 bucks. As part of this research, I actually bought that blade, for some reason thinking it was a package of TWO blades, and a short hour later at home, opened the package and learned a valuable lesson. Blades tend to come in packages of ONE. See how long it's been since I'd bought any? I don't even know how many eggs come in a dozen anymore, because I never buy those things either. Oh well. 

When all else fails, look at the instructions on the package
Pro Tip: This actually helps!

So, also doing more research, to make up for the previous expensive research of buying one blade and then finding out it was the wrong one anyway, I went back to RockAuto.com and ordered what should be the RIGHT blades (with an S) this time, for about 2 bucks each. As in "way cheaper" and "way more convenient" and "another great true-to-life story you can only find (thank goodness) on this blog. Life isn't always pretty, but it sure makes me laugh!

Old on top, new on bottom. The old ones have a bigger structure, probably deflects the wind and bugs or something, who knows?

New blades installed. Waiting for rain to test performance!