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Very Handy Hubby

April 3rd, 2008 at 03:28 pm

My very delightful husband fixed my windshield wiper last night, saving us about $30. I thought the motor had gone from pushing all sorts of snow and sleet this winter, but the arm was just loose from the spindle or something, and in 10 minutes, he had it working. I'm delighted.

Another inexpensive day, and somehow, I resisted the "Carnival of Cakes" special at the local grocery.

My ebay auctions went very well, and with the 1cent listing fee, it was worth it. Sometimes ebay is such a slog, I also freecycled some old kids' videos, so I feel decluttered (about 1%!) and richer.

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »

10 Responses to “Very Handy Hubby”

  1. Ima saver Says:
    April 3rd, 2008 at 04:00 pm

    My hubby knows how to fix everything too, except electronics. He can do woodwork, plumbing, electrical, cars, you name it.

  2. sillyoleme Says:
    April 3rd, 2008 at 04:36 pm

    My BF is kind of the opposite, he can fix anything electronic, and some cars, but not so much on the woodwork/plumbing/electrical.

  3. dmontngrey Says:
    April 3rd, 2008 at 06:37 pm

    Ugh, I thought it was just me this happened to! I'm afraid to use my wipers now because mine keeps falling apart during snowstorms. We're tired of replacing that part, but I now have a spare one in the glove box! Sometimes it gets loose like yours, other times it gets stripped. Bad design really. You wouldn't happen to drive a VW would you?

  4. Broken Arrow Says:
    April 3rd, 2008 at 06:51 pm

    Maybe this will help....

    Generally, wipers are not a difficult fix. Not trying to take away anyone else's thunder, just want to reassure dmontngrey that this is . As a safety issue, it's worth it and very affordable too, all things considered. Just need to figure out how the wipers blades are attached to the wiper.

    Please be careful about ice and even hard snow. They will destroy wipers very quickly and easily. It's best to use a hand scraper and thaw the rest with the car's heater before you use them.

  5. My English Castle Says:
    April 3rd, 2008 at 09:05 pm

    I agree with BA. I have no one but myself to blame, I suspect. And it's a Buick, not a VW. I'm too frequently in a hurry and have let the wipers do the work the scraper should have done. Has anyone else had issues with the spray-on de-icer? I had never used it before. I'm a Minnesotan and usually v good about scraping the windshield or putting the car in the garage. But Brit husband said the deicer would work for mornings when I'm in a rush. It's horrible! It just refreezes to the windshield causing a worse problem than the ice.

  6. dmontngrey Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 02:59 am

    Ha ha ha BA. Generally I would agree with you, but have you ever owned/fixed a VW? Nothing is easy, affordable, or makes much sense. Trust me, we know exactly how every aspect of the wiper assembly works and this isn't a problem that can be permanently fixed on my car. I learned very quickly how to use my wipers sparingly.

  7. Broken Arrow Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 05:17 am

    Er, no I have never owned a VW. Is it really that bad? On my Toyota, they just snap right off in fact.... Well, that's one less vote of confidence for V-DUB yaaaa.

  8. dmontngrey Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 07:03 am

    BA - I just realized we're talking about 2 different problems here. This isn't a wiper blade issue that I'm referring to - nor was My English Castle. Wiper blades are "relatively" easy to replace - although mine are currently secured on with twist ties as a precaution. This problem is down under the hood in the mechanisms that attach to the wiper motor. If this falls apart, it will appear that your wiper motor died. In my car, you have to remove the cowl to get to everything - that takes more than 10 minutes. Once it's put back together, you have to make sure it's lined up right so that the wipers move in their natural rotation. Mine dont currently, but we figure that will get fixed the next time we tear it apart. They go down about an inch before moving in the up direction. When they were wiped out in the last snowstorm, something "skipped" on the splines of the wiper motor and caused a wiper arm (under the hood) to flip over. Then my wipers started in the up position, wiped down and then back up. That was interesting until they completely quit.

    V-DUBs aren't for the faint of heart, that's for sure! If I had the $$, I'd get another one in a heartbeat cuz I'm rather fond of the quirks. I don't have the $$ and DH isn't fond of the quirks, so this will be my last. Frown 10 yrs old with 167000 miles and it's not long for this world.

  9. dmontngrey Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 07:04 am

    I tried to add: heavy snow will cause the nut on the wiper motor bolt to work loose, or strip the splines on the mechanism itself.

  10. My English Castle Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 10:09 am

    My girlfriend sold her Jetta for similar reasons.
    My old Buick is almost at 100K miles now. It would be interesting to know the average car miles for folks at this site.

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