Hesitant Handyman Auto Repairs - 5 tips on changing wiper blades

If one of your New year’s resolutions is to save money, there are countless ways you can do it. One way in which I try to do this is finding car items that I can fix myself.

Now, before you get crazy, I’m not talking about dropping the transmission or replacing your head gasket. You may want to learn how to do that, but there are some items I’ll gladly pay someone else to do so I don’t have to.

Here’s a few things to keep in mind if you want to get into changing your own wiper blades.

Change every 6-12 months

Wiper blades aren’t like oil changes where you typically do it every certain number of miles (although lets be honest, every oil change place is happy to upsell you on wiper blades that they’ll install for you every time you come in for an oil change, but for a markup over what it’s going to cost you to just buy them and install them yourself), and the amount of time between wiper blade changes likely has to do with how often yours are used or how harsh the conditions are around it. Most manufacturers recommend you change every 6-12 months, but a good rule of thumb is if you’re seeing streaks on the windshield or your blades chatter across your windshield, it’s time.

Most Places Have a Sizing Guide

When you show up to buy the wiper blades, most every place you can buy them will have a sizing guide to help you find the right size of wiper blade for your specific vehicle. These come in a couple different flavors.

• The 1980s phone book – You see one of these, you immediately assume that your wiper blade retailer of choice hasn’t restocked since you could still buy a Ford Pinto new on a dealer lot. Then you’re confused because you see current model years listed in the book, and you realize that the wiper blade manufacturers might be one of the few
• The dated digital display catalog – this is a higher tech solution than the 1980s phone book, however for what its worth it can be far more frustrating. usually these have a digital display that looks similar to the ones in your old graphing calculator from high school, with a series of buttons around the display to help you navigate. Nevermind that the buttons are a pain in the butt to use and if you select the wrong make/model/etc it likely means you’ll have to start the whole process over from the beginning because the back button is worn out.
• “Ralph”- Ralph is a placeholder name, but he represents the super knowledgeable car guy at most automotive stores who will inherently be able to tell you exactly what sized blades you need just by how you’re dressed. “I can tell by your North Face jacket that you own a 2003 Subaru Outback wagon, which will require these two for the front wiper and this one for the rear.” Literally every small town automotive shop has one of these guys. It’s a rule.

Some places will install them for you

So if you really, REALLY don’t want to install it yourself, but you also don’t want to pay a premium for an oil change place to do it, a lot of auto parts places will install them for free. Though it wouldn’t hurt you to tip the guy installing, especially if they do it while it’s raining.

J hooks or Pins

Most of the wiper blades you see are one of two types — J hooks or pins. The nice thing is, most of the wiper blade brands on the market are compatible with both types of hooks. Both of my vehicles are J hooks, which are a fairly basic installation.

How to install J hooks

Remove the old wiper blades

Look, this isn’t rocket science–J hooks typically have a catch that you’ll release with a screwdriver, then you slide the old wiper blade off.

Install the new wiper blades

This is pretty simple, as usually it’s just a matter of sliding them into place until the catch clicks into place. With the Bosch blades I installed, I slid them into the hook and pulled until I heard it click to indicate they were locked in place. I didn’t pull it in all the way once and it eventually came off and I got a nice scratch on my windshield from the metal arm scraping on the windshield while I was frantically trying to remember which switch turned off the wipers. Not fun.

And that’s it! Congratulations, you should be able to successfully navigate the not so complicated world of wiper blades now. Give yourself a pat on the back and let that motivate you to look for other easy maintenance you can do yourself!

What is one maintenance thing that you usually pay more for but could probably do yourself? Let me know in the comments!