What do mud, bird droppings and frost all have in common? When they’re covering your windshield, they can temporarily obscure your view of the road, leaving you driving blind. And when you can’t see the road clearly ahead of you, it can be really scary.
That’s one of the reasons it’s important to maintain your windshield cleaning system, which includes your wipers, blades and washers. They’re three vital components that work together to ensure you’re clearly seeing what’s going on with the road and drivers around you.
Your wipers are doing the physical work on the surface of your windshield’s glass. The rubber or silicone is what touches the surface of the glass, and after time and exposure to the elements, wiper blades can get brittle, lose their flexibility, rip and tear to the point where they simply can’t clear the glass.
What holds the wiper blades close to the glass is important, too. Conventional blades use a metal frame which holds flexible rubber inserts. Just the inserts can be changed which keeps replacement costs down.
Another type that’s gaining more popularity is called a beam blade. It doesn’t have a frame but instead has a stiff beam and blade combination. Beam blades can conform more snugly to the curved glass used in many recent vehicle designs. Plus they have a sweeping shape which harnesses the pressure of the air that passes over them to apply more pressure during wiping, especially effective at highway speeds. High-tech rubber wiper blades, what …?! Seriously, they are pretty cool.
If you crossed the conventional frame blade with a beam blade, you’d have the hybrid wiper. It’s constructed like a traditional wiper with a plastic frame that takes advantage of the aerodynamic shape of a beam blade.
Equally important to your windshield is the washer system since wiper blades simply don’t work on dry glass. The washers use a pump to shoot fluid on your glass to remove debris, dust and other contaminants.
All these systems need to always be at the ready since we never know what elements we’ll encounter on the road. Regular inspections and maintenance of your wipers and washers can ensure you’ll be able to see far down the road ahead of you for clearer vision and safer traveling.
Tuffy Kentwood (Kalamazoo Ave SE)
4384 Kalamazoo Ave. SE
Kentwood, Michigan 49508
616.301.1436
