Road Trip Mistake #7: Not Reading Instruction Manuals

Embarrassing story time.

It’s been a few months since we shared one, but it’s time for another of our road trip mistakes. And this one’s a doozy.

It’s so ridiculous in fact that after we realized our mistake, Shae and I spent the next half hour looking over at each other and laughing at ourselves.

Our mistake began a week ago in Denver – here’s what happened.

Shae and I aren’t particularly handy people, especially when it comes to cars. Driving our car through a car wash is about the extent of our involvement in car maintenance. Oil changes and everything else more serious is taken care of by professionals.

We’d had our wiper blades for about 2.5 years and they’d reached that stage where they’d squeak except during torrential downpours. Shae’s mom offered to get us new wiper blades while visiting us in Denver, so we headed to AutoZone to take her up on the offer.

We’ve used Rain-X wiper blades in the past and always been pleased with them, so we picked those. Even though AutoZone can install the blades for you, we figured we’d do it ourselves because a) the store was busy that night and b) how hard could it be?

How Hard Could It Be?!

It was cold outside, so Shae and I each took one set of blades to change. I have no shame in admitting that I couldn’t work out how to get off our existing wiper blades, let alone how to install the new ones. Shae removed and installed hers pretty quickly, so I gladly handed mine over for her to sort out (along with my man card, I’m sure some of you are thinking 😉 ).

In no time at all, both sets of wiper blades were installed with neither of us having read the instruction manual that came with them.

Oops.

The Results

When using the wipers later that night, we noticed that they didn’t seem to be working very well. And by not working very well, I mean we could barely see the road.

It didn’t rain much over the following days, so it wasn’t an issue for a while. However, we encountered rain/sleet on our way from Dighton KS to Garden City KS. Visibility was even worse than the photo above and so we were in a tricky position. The country road we were on didn’t have a shoulder, so it’s not like we could immediately pull over. Even if we could, the weather was due to be terrible for the rest of the day. That meant sitting by the side of the road and waiting for the weather to change wasn’t an option either.

We decided to head straight to AutoZone upon arrival in Garden City to exchange our wiper blades, but that wouldn’t help us on the drive down there. While driving along though, Shae had a thought and asked me to pull over when I had a chance. A short distance up the road, there was a gravel road off to the side, so I pulled over there and Shae hopped out.

Sure enough, she’d worked out the problem.

Here’s What Caused The Problem

You can’t see it on the photo above, but the wiper blades had a bright yellow section where the blades actually wiped the windshield. That was a little unusual as they’re normally plain black, but I hadn’t thought too much about it.

Apparently I should have.

It turns out those bright yellow sections were wiper blade covers that should’ve been removed before installing the blades. To add to the embarrassment, Shae had noticed one of those covers was coming loose when installing the blades, so she’d pushed it back in place rather than removing it.

Shae’s face below sums up how both of us felt when realizing our mistake.

We’d been driving around for a week with covers on our wiper blades. It’s no wonder they didn’t work properly! And sure enough – removing them meant our wiper blades worked correctly.

So apologies to Rain-X for thinking they had a dodgy batch of wiper blades. It turns out that the only dodgy thing was our inability to perform the most basic of car maintenance.