IN OUR GARAGE At the beginning of December I decided to lay off the press cars for a few weeks, not only would this give me the opportunity to clear the backlog of 4x4 reviews I had, but mainly because I wanted to drive Deux Smurf regularly again. It didn’t take long for me to realise that she needed a bit of care and attention, and one important aspect was that her windscreen wipers only smeared rain from one side of the screen to another, as opposed to clearing it. Going back to January 2016 when I first bought Deux Smurf, the first things I bought was a pair of Bosch Aerotwin windscreen wipers and an original rear wiper from Roughtrax. I’ve used Aerotwin’s for many years, on my previous Smurf, Discovery and Muddy Madam’s Skoda Fabia. Okay they’re expensive, but I’ve always found them to work incredibly well, especially off-road when the windscreen gets covered in mud and grit. In 5 years Deux Smurf is on her 3rd pair of Aerotwins, but I’ve only replaced the genuine rear wiper once. As far as I’m aware, the genuine rear wiper can only be bought from Roughtrax, and after clicking on their website I decided to order their genuine Toyota front wipers, too. Figured I’d give them a try, ‘cos why not? The front wipers are easy to fit, but the rear involves digging out a screwdriver. You see, the wiper is attached to the arm with 2 very small screws and is quite a fiddly job to replace. You need to be careful not to lose the 2 screws or thread them as they don’t come with the wiper, so you better not drop them either, like I did! As I’m writing this before Christmas, my next job is to give her a full winter service and to sort out a wobble from her steering as I have a 450 mile trip planned with Roam Free Adventures between Christmas and New Year, more about that in the next issue, hopefully. more at » www.roughtrax4x4.com
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THE MUD LIFE MAGAZINE
