orange barrels on road and bug on windshield

Windshield Wiper Replacement

Spring is in the air, the sun is shining, and the last thing on your mind is your windshield wipers. But this is exactly the time when you should be thinking about replacing your windshield wipers.

Throughout the winter, your windshield wipers worked their little blades off, clearing snow, rain, hail and road gunk off your windshield. And now they are probably a little tired and worn out, leaving streaks and no longer able to give you that crystal clear vision they once did. As we get ready for summer wheeling (and who isn’t excited about that), changing out our windshield wipers is one of those maintenance items on our check list.

A quick Google search will return you lots of choices, so we turned to our friend Beau Jaramillo over at Amsoil and he sent us Trico’s Neoform Beam Blade. These are their highest-performing blades with single beam construction offering an infinite number of blade pressure points that keeps a constant, even pressure across the entire length of the wiper. All that pressure translates into a smoother, more consistent wipe across the windshield. They even have a Teflon coating for longer life. The NeoForm blades’ aerodynamic spoiler design helps keep the blade on the windshield, even in high wind or vehicle speeds… Not that our FJ Cruiser is breaking the sound barrier.

Our FJ Cruiser requires three windshield wipers, one 16″ blade in front of the driver and two smaller 14″ blades keeping the center and passenger side of the windshield clean. The windshield blades connect to the arms using a hook style attachment (other rigs my use a different attachment style). Changing your windshield wipers is easy and can be done rain or shine in about five minutes.

Remove the old windshield wiper. It should have a small tab that will release it from the arm and allow you to slide the old wiper off the arm.

Push the Trico wiper adapter latch open, lifting it up.
Slide the arm end through the latch opening and pull the blade back onto the arm’s hook to lock it in place.
Close the adapter latch and you done.windshield wippers

Sound complicated? Here is a 60 second video that will show you how easy it is: Trico Install Video

Now when we run into rain, mud or trail dust, our new blades will wipe it clean, instead of just pushing the water back and forth.

We live in the northwest so of course it rained within a few hours of installing the new wipers… And how did they perform? Highway driving in a good downpour, no streaks or wet spots. The view remained crystal clear!

dirty fj cruiser leaving haul road

Road Trip Junkie… 12 Step Program

You won’t find Road Trip Addiction Disorder (RTAD) in any medical journal but more and more folks are finding it harder and harder to stay away from the tarmac.

A few experts have tossed around numbers like 30 million suffer from RTAD – just a handful of the 196,165,667 drivers in the USA. But if you have a road trip monkey on your back you know the pain and suffering that comes with this debilitating addition.

Ok, at this point you might be saying to yourself; “these guys are looney!” “I enjoy road trips. I don’t have a problem.” If that’s the case take the following quiz and see if you might be certifiable — like we are.

  1. Do you take the long way on your commute avoiding short cuts and looking for new routes?
  2. When sitting in your office cube, do you find yourself fantasizing about driving to destinations halfway across the country?
  3. Do you long to see: The world’s largest frying pan, the biggest ball of twine, or the dinosaur fossil and petrified forest museum?
  4. Have you driven your vehicle through a tunnel carved out of a giant tree?
  5. Does the perfect date involve a drive-in?  Is an old A&W with car hops the ultimate date destination?
  6. Have you re-financed you home to ensure you have gas money for that planned drive down A1A?
  7. You know what a TripTik® is.
  8. To fall asleep you picture passing white highway lines, instead of counting sheep ?
  9. Have you ever crazy glued your eyelids open to keep from falling asleep so you could drive to the beach at night and be back to work by morning?
  10. After a fight with your significant other do take a victory lap in the car rather than having makeup sex?

If you answered “yes” to any of these question you may have RTAD. If you answered “yes” to more than half the questions you are hopelessly addicted.  If you answered “yes” to #10…  we’re sorry.  But fear not!  There are many high functioning RTAD people in the world, many right in your neighborhood.  If you feed your addition properly using all your vacation time, long weekends and commute you should be able to satisfy that monkey and maintain some assemblance of an ordinary, less fulfilled, boring life.