diff --git a/test/e2e/autoscaling/custom_metrics_stackdriver_autoscaling.go b/test/e2e/autoscaling/custom_metrics_stackdriver_autoscaling.go
index 1732bd1b937..2f3b280ea53 100644
--- a/test/e2e/autoscaling/custom_metrics_stackdriver_autoscaling.go
+++ b/test/e2e/autoscaling/custom_metrics_stackdriver_autoscaling.go
@@ -264,10 +264,10 @@ func (tc *CustomMetricTestCase) Run() {
 	defer monitoring.CleanupDescriptors(gcmService, projectID)
 
 	err = monitoring.CreateAdapter(monitoring.AdapterDefault)
+	defer monitoring.CleanupAdapter(monitoring.AdapterDefault)
 	if err != nil {
 		framework.Failf("Failed to set up: %v", err)
 	}
-	defer monitoring.CleanupAdapter(monitoring.AdapterDefault)
 
 	// Run application that exports the metric
 	err = createDeploymentToScale(tc.framework, tc.kubeClient, tc.deployment, tc.pod)