Mundane winter maintenance. New wipers, lugs. Any recommendations?

[007]

Each winter the car is garaged for months so I replace anything that isn't in great shape.

This winter its time for:

New convertible top and trim pieces
New wipers (stock ones had paint chip off and are corroding)
New lug nuts (Steeda/Gorrilla chrome lugs are all rusty and crap looking after 5 years)
Might switch the light bar for an autopower roll-bar.

So as lame as it is.... does anyone have recommendations on lug nuts that wont rust? Or wipers? Is Motorcraft OEM the only option?

 

[flstang65]

Is the car being driven during the winter and where do you live? As far as the wiper go, you get what you pay for. You don't have to go with the Bosch Icon's or similar but, don't buy the cheap crap either. My favorites are the Teflon blades made by Trico sold at Advance Auto Parts. They are like 12 a piece and last a good amount of time. For the lug nuts, just get any new ones with a good warranty. I don't know how much the Ford ones are.

 

[GDawg]

Good time to do a coolant flush. Put some Sta-bil in you gas tank.

Time to detail the engine!

 

[007]

Is the car being driven during the winter and where do you live? As far as the wiper go, you get what you pay for. You don't have to go with the Bosch Icon's or similar but, don't buy the cheap crap either. My favorites are the Teflon blades made by Trico sold at Advance Auto Parts. They are like 12 a piece and last a good amount of time. For the lug nuts, just get any new ones with a good warranty. I don't know how much the Ford ones are.

Thanks for the advice. The car doesnt even see rain let alone snow! I could probably just remove them altogether!!!

 

[PULMEOVR]

Is the car being driven during the winter and where do you live? As far as the wiper go, you get what you pay for. You don't have to go with the Bosch Icon's or similar but, don't buy the cheap crap either. My favorites are the Teflon blades made by Trico sold at Advance Auto Parts. They are like 12 a piece and last a good amount of time. For the lug nuts, just get any new ones with a good warranty. I don't know how much the Ford ones are.

Regarding wipers, I personally have had the opposite experience. El cheapo wipers work GREAT for me, and yes I have tried the expensive Teflon wipers, winter wipers etc. I keep coming back to these cheap wipers. The more expensive wipers did a significantly worse job of clearing the windshield and did not last any longer than budget wipers. My advice: save your money.

 

[cardudeusa]

Hands down Rain X Latitudes or Repel (have rain x in the rubber) are my favorite. I have tried every wiper on the market and had none last as long and wipe as smoothly as these.

 

[007]

I'm actually replacing the wipers themselves. Not just the blades. The paint has chipped and they are all oxidized and corroded looking. They have to go!

 

[fiveoho]

I'm actually replacing the wipers themselves. Not just the blades. The paint has chipped and they are all oxidized and corroded looking. They have to go!

how bout a fresh coat of paint?

 

[007]

how bout a fresh coat of paint?

Yeah maybe I could clean em up and paint em. Worth a try if theres no kind of upgrade option. They look like crap right now. Strange thing is they've only seen 50k over 10 years and they have never seen winter or salt. Barely seen rain.

 

[flstang65]

I would repaint the wiper arms myself also. If you really don't want to, you can buy new wiper arms at any auto parts store for like 25-35 each. For that price, I would repaint them. If you are going to put the car in storage, I would put the car up on jack stands to avoid getting any flat spots in the tires. Plus, you can detail the underside whenever you have time while it is up in the air.

 

[fiveoho]

Yeah maybe I could clean em up and paint em. Worth a try if theres no kind of upgrade option. They look like crap right now. Strange thing is they've only seen 50k over 10 years and they have never seen winter or salt. Barely seen rain.

the wiper arms on my explorer look awful. but then again, it sees rain very often and doesnt quite get the same treatment as the stang.

clean em and hit em with a coat of paint

 

[007]

My car lives in its garage all year round. In the winter I inflate the tires to 40 PSI. Then I roll it forward / backward a bit every week or so when I happen to be working on something in the garage. That way the tires dont sit on the same spot for any longer than normal.

 

[twogts4us]

If the paint is chipping, your only option then would be to remove ALL of the paint before laying down a new coat of paint. Who the hell wants to do that?

 

[01GT eibach]

This may be dumb, but with the cold comes a decrease in air pressure. One of my cars (not a Mustang) with ultra-low profiles had a flat and you could not visually tell. So that this would never happen again, I added tire-valve caps that show green when properly inflated. That way I can do a quick look around and see very quickly if any tire needs air. I was so happy with them, I added them on my Mustang, too. It has already worked out, as last week I saw that a couple of the Mustang's tires had gotten low due to the cold. This has been a great mod for just a few bucks ...