It has been a while that I have not paid personal attention to our Ford Figo. This vehicle has run 80 thousand kilo meters and served us well for close to 8 years. I recently had changed the front tyres on it from Yokohama Earth 1 to Apollo (cannot remember the brand) stock size. The rubber cost me about Rs.9000. And then I spent some more on rubber this weekend.
But today I decided to play attention to the broken rubber on front wiper. The picture on the left shows what had become of it. This was also causing damage to the windscreen. There are probably some scratches there which will need 3M care. I remember changing these just last year with the Authorised Ford service station in Hyderabad. But, I really don't know the life of the wiper rubber, so cannot complain.
I guess this is mostly the result of lot of heat making the rubber brittle and running the wipers without water. The later happens a lot in case of Ford Figo because of it's unconventional placement of wiper controls. For the uninitiated, Ford, Chevrolet and some other car manufacturers have the wiper and light controls on opposite side to the Suzukis and Hondas. So when your car gets driven by someone else who is used to driving a Maruti, the wipers are run dry 99% of the time. The last time I got the rear wiper changed, I remember being fleeced for Rs.900 in Hyderabad. So, this time I decided to take the matter in my own hands.
While I had gone to Noida, Sector 18, Atta market to drop the Bullet with the Ustad for a servicing (separate post on that), I decided to pick up a pair from the auto market there. Always note that both the wiper blades are mostly different size. On the Figo they are 22 inch and 16 inches. The pair cost me Rs.250. Yes the pair!
Removing and replacing the wipers is easy peasy. The instructions are also written on the packaging of the new wipers. Basically, you simply slide out the old ones and slide in the new ones till they click in place. If you cannot do this, do not read this post any further.
Now, the easy part is over. But there is a catch. In my opinion, I did not have to replace the entire assembly. Only rubber refills (the rubber portion that actually wipes the water off the glass) should be available. It can surely easily be removed.Look at the picture on the left. I removed the rubber by simply sliding it out. However, I have not been able to find only the refills online. I will definitely look for them in the auto market. If available, the same replacement will take less than half the cost. Essentially the metal assembly is in a good shape and does not need replacement. So there should be a place where they would sell only the rubber. Expect and update on this post as I get some conclusive evidence that money can be saved on replacing the wiper blade refill rubbers!!
But today I decided to play attention to the broken rubber on front wiper. The picture on the left shows what had become of it. This was also causing damage to the windscreen. There are probably some scratches there which will need 3M care. I remember changing these just last year with the Authorised Ford service station in Hyderabad. But, I really don't know the life of the wiper rubber, so cannot complain. I guess this is mostly the result of lot of heat making the rubber brittle and running the wipers without water. The later happens a lot in case of Ford Figo because of it's unconventional placement of wiper controls. For the uninitiated, Ford, Chevrolet and some other car manufacturers have the wiper and light controls on opposite side to the Suzukis and Hondas. So when your car gets driven by someone else who is used to driving a Maruti, the wipers are run dry 99% of the time. The last time I got the rear wiper changed, I remember being fleeced for Rs.900 in Hyderabad. So, this time I decided to take the matter in my own hands.
While I had gone to Noida, Sector 18, Atta market to drop the Bullet with the Ustad for a servicing (separate post on that), I decided to pick up a pair from the auto market there. Always note that both the wiper blades are mostly different size. On the Figo they are 22 inch and 16 inches. The pair cost me Rs.250. Yes the pair!Removing and replacing the wipers is easy peasy. The instructions are also written on the packaging of the new wipers. Basically, you simply slide out the old ones and slide in the new ones till they click in place. If you cannot do this, do not read this post any further. 
Now, the easy part is over. But there is a catch. In my opinion, I did not have to replace the entire assembly. Only rubber refills (the rubber portion that actually wipes the water off the glass) should be available. It can surely easily be removed.Look at the picture on the left. I removed the rubber by simply sliding it out. However, I have not been able to find only the refills online. I will definitely look for them in the auto market. If available, the same replacement will take less than half the cost. Essentially the metal assembly is in a good shape and does not need replacement. So there should be a place where they would sell only the rubber. Expect and update on this post as I get some conclusive evidence that money can be saved on replacing the wiper blade refill rubbers!!
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