A few weeks ago, we discussed how to prepare your car for cold weather. In the blog post we discussed various cold weather tips for your car or truck. With colder weather quickly approaching, we thought today we would discuss how to change a wiper blade on your car.

Wiper blades often get neglected. As a matter of safety, you should regularly change your wiper blades at least once a year, depending on how often you use them. If you encounter lots of rain or snow throughout the year, you may want to change them every six months.

Either way, you do not want to be driving through rain or snow without good wiper blades.

You can often tell if your windshield wipers need to be replace when the wiper blade:

• Makes squeaking sounds when they are operating.
• Has cracks along the rubber blade.
• Smears water or snow instead of removing it.

If you see any of these signs, it means it’s time to replace your windshield wiper.

To replace the wiper, you want to take the following steps:

1). Standing on the driver’s side of the car, lift the arm of the windshield wiper toward you. The wiper arm should be in a propped position.

2). Locate a small tab on the underside of the wiper blade. Press the tab down, while pulling the wiper blade away from the hook of the windshield wiper arm.

3). At this point, the old wiper should be removed from the wiper arm. Avoid letting the wiper arm snap back into its normal position. You could damage your windshield.

4). Take the new wiper and rotate the center clip until it is parallel with the hook at the end of the windshield wiper arm.

5). Holding the wiper blade upside down, insert the clip into the hook until it snaps into place.

6). Rotate the blade to its normal position and lower the windshield wiper arm back into place.

7). Repeat these steps on the passenger-side wiper.

If you’re having any difficulties while replacing your wiper, you can always have a technician replace it while you’re getting an Albuquerque car tune up or a Sacramento oil change.