Brakes and airbags help you survive a bad situation. Seeing clearly keeps you out of one in the first place, which is why the cheapest safety work on your car is usually the stuff that helps you see.
Fall in Middle Tennessee tests all of it at once. More rain, fog settling into the low ground in the mornings, and sunset arriving earlier every week until it’s dark on the drive home.
Wipers first, because summer destroyed them
Wiper blades are rubber, and rubber sitting on a windshield in direct Tennessee sun all summer takes a beating. The edge hardens and develops tiny tears, and it loses the sharp lip that actually cuts water off the glass.
You’ll know because instead of clearing, the blade smears. Or it chatters and skips across the windshield. Or it leaves untouched streaks right in your line of sight.
That’s not just annoying. In heavy rain at highway speed, a smeared windshield with oncoming headlights hitting it is close to opaque. Blades are inexpensive, and they’re the highest-value thing on this entire list. Most cars need them about once a year, and September is the right month.
While you’re at it, top off your washer fluid and actually test the sprayers. Those little nozzles clog, and a clogged nozzle means you’re dragging a dry blade across a dirty windshield, which is how you end up with scratches in the glass.
Check every light on the car
This takes five minutes with someone helping you. Low beams, high beams, both turn signals front and rear, brake lights including the one up in the rear window, reverse lights, and the small lights over your license plate.
Brake lights are the ones people miss, because you can’t see them from the driver’s seat. A burned-out brake light is both a safety problem and a routine reason to get pulled over.
If all your lights seem dimmer than they used to be, or they brighten noticeably when you press the gas, that’s not a bulb problem. That’s your charging system, and it’s worth getting the battery and alternator tested.
Defrost is part of visibility
Your front defroster blows air across the inside of the windshield to clear condensation. Here’s something most drivers don’t know: it works far better with the air conditioning running, because the A/C pulls moisture out of the air before it hits the glass. Most cars switch the A/C on automatically in defrost mode for exactly that reason.
Which means if your air conditioning isn’t working, your defroster is compromised too, and you’ll find out on the first cold damp morning when the windshield fogs and won’t clear. The rear window defroster can fail separately, usually when one of the thin printed lines across the glass breaks.
If your defroster runs but the airflow itself feels weak, the problem is often a clogged cabin air filter rather than the defroster. Our post on that covers what to check.
Read more: Foggy Windows and Weak Airflow? Check This First
Small stuff that prevents a wreck
None of this is expensive or complicated. Wipers, bulbs, washer fluid, working defrost. But this is the category of maintenance where ignoring it doesn’t cost you a repair bill down the road. It costs you a collision you could have avoided.
We check all of it as part of our complimentary inspection. If you’re coming in for anything else this fall, let us look at your visibility while the car is already here.
Schedule Your Service at Franklin Automotive
Franklin Automotive has served Franklin, Brentwood, Cool Springs, Spring Hill, Columbia, and Leiper’s Fork since 1999. We’re a family-owned NAPA AutoCare Center with ASE-certified technicians, and every qualifying repair is backed by our 3-year / 36,000-mile warranty. We also offer a free shuttle and complimentary inspections.
Call (615) 472-8052 or visit us at 307 5th Ave N, Franklin, TN 37064. We’re open Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
