Cleaning Car Windscreen

[Huge]

[39 lines snipped]

And it stinks, to boot.

[newshound]

+1

I use old linen tea-towels

[fred]

A friend once asked me where the scratchess on the inside of his windscreen where coming from.

Wifey cleaning condensation with the back of her hand with a diamond engagement ring on her finger.

[fred]

Auto car wash machine fluid once contained silicon which smeared terribly on windscreens and was well nigh impossible to remove. Seem to have gone away from it now.

[Huge]

This is a bit of a religious issue, but I wouldn't use Rain-X either for the same reason. Horrible stuff.

[Mr Pounder]

Wait until he puts too much into the washer bottle!

[fred]

Never found Rain-X to cause that problem. Don't use it much on the windscreen

[Mike]

I use Bartenders Friend (which has oxalic acid in it) for the once a year clean of the outside of the windscreen.

- Mike

[john james]

The plasticiser.

Not for the plasticiser.

[Dave Liquorice]

either

I was very dubious about the claims but when CostCo had a two pack (Cleaner and Rain-X) for a tenner I thought I'd give it a try. When freshly applied the wipers do tend to produce a very fine misty beading of water but that quickly fades, about half a stroke of the wipers. Other than that, any water beads and above about 40 mph blows off. Once "worn in" the fine misty beading problem goes away and fly splat/traffic film are easier for the wash/wipers to remove.

I suspect that how well Rain-X performs is down to the application. Cleaning the screen, buffing, rinsing, drying, applying Rain-X, buffing, rinsing, is quite a time consuming process and moderate hard work if done well. I reckon it takes 2 - 3 hours, it's not a slosh it on quick rub, job done process.

I agree about the waxes/silicones that car washes apply though. Horrible stuff.

[john james]

I'm not convince that there is all that much human fats involved with the car windscreens. You certainly get that with glasses, but that human fat washes off very easily under the tap, no need for any detergent or isopropyl alcohol to get it off. The stuff that is hard to get off the inside of the windscreen is plasticisers IMO.

Yep. And is quite hard to get off with water an detergent.

But does work if you are careful to wet something like an old T shirt carefully outside the car and don?t end up with enough metho on it to drip onto anything in the car and is easier to find than isopropanol.

[Chris French]

In message , john james writes

I've never had any problem cleaning the inside of the windscreen with it. Though except for my wife's first car, we've only had 2nd hand cars, so the youngest has been about 4 years old.

[john james]

Yeah, that's likely the reason you never saw the plasticiser problem, no new cars.

[Jethro_uk]

Washing up liquid user to strip the shine from the lacquer ...

[Mr Pounder]

I was once told that washing up liquid contains salt ..........

[CB]

I think that was the cheaper ones - salt was used to "bulk up". Fairy was allegedly one of the few without salt added - hence more expensive, but less required (but still provided in a squeezy bottle so that you could use far more than was needed).

[Mr Pounder]

Hmmmmm

[Mike]

Correction: 'Barkeepers Friend'

- Mike