Properly Cleaning Your Glass
Clean windows are just as essential to matching a car’s overall shine.
Specialising in Car Detailing , Project Detail Sydney & Melbourne will be covering a series of articles focussing on decontamination and in this post, we focus the importance cleaning your vehicles glass and windows.
A vehicle’s windows is one of the most important parts of the car that is mostly overlooked. It has to be clean and visible for us to operate the car safely but also smudges and streaks can ruin a cars appearance. Overtime, neglect leads to a lot of bonded contaminants and grime after several years of ownership. This requires use of a clay bar to remove, more information can be found here. Without removal, the contamination can eventually hinder your driving and impact your safety.
There are many different ways to clean your glass and it can be frustrating to find the right guide to get them cleaned properly as the most common complaint we here is streaky windows. We are going to cover the basics of glass cleaning and the techniques that worked the best for us and also different method for different glass conditions ranging from brand new to old cars.
Types of Glass Cleaners and Cloths
Having the right towel and knowing a few techniques will make the job quick and streak free.
Glass Cleaners comes in few different types. Generally they all work fine and some individuals may favour a certain brand over another. However, we highly advise not to use any glass cleaners containing ammonia. Even though they have great cleaning power and cuts through grime well, if you have window tint on your windows the ammonia will affect and damage the film. We find that window cleaners with a percentage of alcohol works the best because the alcohol helps the streaks to evaporate at a much quicker way and it also has potent cleaning ability.
When it comes to the type of cloths, stay away from the age old newspaper. Newspapers do not use the same quality ink they used to and it simply bleeds onto the glass and can stain the tint! Furthermore, with the new technology of towels now available, newspapers really are a thing of the past.
Project Detail recommends using a variety of microfibre towels. Try out waffle weaves, short nap or long pile, either way the most important thing is to have several handy in order to get that streak free shine.
Never cleaned your windows?
Try a variety of towels, you’ll find whichever one is easiest for you.
Some people clean their glass on a weekly basis and many others simply have never touched their windscreens and windows since they purchased their cars. Take this into consideration that the longer you leave your windows the more grime will need to be removed:
Weekly:
- As part as your car maintenance wash with the 2 bucket method, wash the exterior glass thoroughly as you can and make sure you don’t leave any dirty spots. If your glass is hydrophobic (beading well), most likely your glass is in good condition.
You can find out more about the 2 bucket method by clicking here to see our guide. - After your vehicle is dried properly with the correct drying techniques, wipe down the glass with a microfibre waffle weave drying towel.
If you need help drying your vehicle, check out our guide here. - Spray glass cleaner onto your towel to prevent overspray of glass cleaner landing all over your car.
- Use your 1st glass cleaning microfibre towel and wipe your glass.
- Followed by your 2nd glass towel, wipe down the glass making sure there is no streaks or lint on the glass.
Pro tip: To avoid confusing any potential streaks, stick to a direction! Try horizontal for the interior and vertical for the exterior. This way, you will be able to identify streak immediately.
Long term cleaning or maintenance:
- As part as your wash and decontamination, decontaminate your glass with a clay-bar treatment to remove any bonded contaminants.
- After your vehicle is dried properly with the correct drying techniques, wipe down the glass with a microfibre waffle weave drying towel.
- Using a DA polisher or by hand and a suitable glass polish slowly to remove any build ups of water marks or strong residue.
- Use a multi-purpose microfibre towel and wipe off any residue left from the polish
- Use a IPA-water dilution, spray and prep the glass for the last step product.
- Apply a suitable windscreen coating such as RainX to give longer protection and easier cleaning in the future.
- Do a final wipe with a glass microfibre towel.
We hope that this article will help any weekend warrior or anybody keep their windows clean. By having cleaner windows will improve safety and vision. If you have any questions regarding our article or general enquiries, be sure to leave a comment or contact us here.
