Wiper Blade Change

OE Wiper Blades. Syndicate. Note type of clips are different from Bosch's

It's time to change my wiper blades. I should probably have changed them more than a year ago. But better late than never. The rubber is coming off at the corner. The driver side arm leaves a streak of uncleaned patch in the middle. It's a total mess, particularly after the long Rajasthan road trip.

I did a lot of online research and finally decided on a pair of 20" Bosch Clear Advantage Wiper Blades from ebay. It would cost me Rs 760. While it's on its way, I thought why not try and see how easy or difficult it is to take off the old wiper. After consulting 101 youtube videos and a few more failed attempts than that, I managed to take the passenger side out successfully. You just need to strike the damn thing down a little as you keep the clip pressed and it comes off. But then everything looks simple after you have worked out how to do it.

Putting it back in is quite a tedious task it seemed. After several failed attempts, I finally somehow managed to do it. Soumya of Bangalore told me putting it back on is easier. I found the alignment part a little puzzling. Probably I was depending too much on youtube videos and not using my good old common sense. In the process I managed to unhook the inner clip that sits inside the wiper. But then I got it back on as well. I hope I got it correct. 

I feel ridiculous now. Such an easy thing to do. Even uneducated Biharis can do it in the auto garages or Maulali. 

But I surely learnt a lot about wipers and how to change them or even how they . I don't know for how long I shall be able to retain the knowledge. But no knowledge goes a waste.

Shall I tell a truth? I am not too confident I can do it again. Probably I will try to do it again tonight :-) I have got to learn this basic DIY for my car.

PS Added Next Morning: Took out the driver side wiper blade just now and pushed it back in. I even heard the famous "click" that they talk about on youtube videos. I think now I can safely say that I can do it confidently. At least for the hook type. I even discovered I had fixed the passenger side one the wrong way last night. Changed it back to the correct position.

Now I will just wait for the new blades to arrive. The installation of the new ones looks like a cake walk on the Bosch video

Update on 24th October 2016

The Bosch video above is useless in the Indian context. The wipers did not come with the kind of clips shown in the video. These are (what I got) are clearly older and cruder but perhaps more advanced than the OE fitment Syndicate.

The diagram on the packaging did not make any sense initially. But after some time it did and the fitment seemed fairly easy. I hope I did it right. I used the washer wiper of the car after fitting the wipers. They worked perfectly fine, cleaning the water without any "untouched" point. Monsoon is unfortunately gone. So their real test will come after a few months :-)

A word on the ebay seller. The packaging was pathetic. Just put the original Bosch packet in courier after sealing off the corners with tapes. Lucky that nothing broke.

Here are the pics for whatever they are worth.

Bosch Clear Advantage wiper. 20 inch pair. OE Size

Bosch Clear Advantage wiper. 20 inch pair. OE Size

The clip of the Bosch Clear Advantage

Ranthambore Road Trip

Just came back from an 11-day, 3390 km road trip to Jaipur and Ranthambore. The car performed flawlessly. Since absolutely nothing happened, and thank God for it, I have nothing to mention. On day 1 we drove for 19 hours to reach Benares from Calcutta. The next really big drive was from Ranthambore to Benares, 909 km, in 15 hours. The Benares Calcutta return journey took us 14 hours.

Our total drive of 3390 km consumed 216.27 lit of fuel purchased from eight pumps. Three out of these were Reliance pumps. If we assume there was no cheating with measurement, then my fuel efficiency was 15.67 km/lit. I would have preferred for it to be 16+.

Wheel Alignment & Balancing

After some 30 months of ownership and 21,000 km + I got my wheels balanced, aligned and rotated today at Minku's. Total damage came to Rs 1000. Perhaps because they didn't require too much of weights. I also got the 5th wheel checked for air pressure for the first time (it was found to have 22 psi pressure). The wheels were made to rotate in a straight forward front to back fashion. No cross over. 

The car's driveability improved right away, as it always does after wheel rotation and alignment.

I also learnt exactly how to align the wheel while replacing it on the body of the vehicle. 

Checked the exact difference between the lug nuts for the steel wheel and the alloy wheel. The one for steel wheel is marginally smaller by a few threads perhaps. Also these lug nuts come with a conical washer kind of thing fitted near the neck. On the nuts for the steel wheel, that washer is fixed. It can be moved on the nuts for the alloy wheels. Will one work for the other? I don't really know. I would rather not try to find out.