No matter how much I clean the inside of my windscreen it never appears properly clean – whats your best method?

IPA when I do mine. The lack of any residue means it demists quicker as well.

I rub the inside with half a raw onion. It’s a traditional solution but it doesn’t actually work.

Glass cleaner & blue roll paper.

Vinegar diluted in water, then use scrunched up old news paper sheets damped in solution to clean windscreen.

Then scrunched up news paper to dry.

Old wives trick but works a treat

Pink windowlene

vinegar and newspaper. smells great!

Onzadog – Member
IPA when I do mine

india pale ale?

A bit of Fairy liquid is used on the inside of the motorbike visor, I’m not sure that’d work on the car so for this I use Eastern Europeans.

Newspaper and elbow grease. Good light to work in so you can see what you’re achieving too. Clean the outside of the screen too.

Mr Muscle glass cleaner, kitchen roll and a lot of rubbing…

Fine wire wool or scotch Brite for the outside

Have a polite word with the bar staff in your favourite pub and ask if you could scrounge a couple of bar towels.
I’ve got a couple, one I actually picked up in the street that someone had clearly dropped after leaving the nearby pub; gave it a good wash and I keep it with me in my bag for scrubbing the inside of the screen on cars I pick up, some of them are filthy, and the towelling seems to work pretty well without any additional liquid.
There’s a limit to what I can carry with me every day, but a bar towel rolls up really small and tucks into a corner out of the way.
A cheap spray bottle of screen cleaner from a pound shop will work as well as anything else if some help is needed.

Megs Glass Cleaner, nice and shiny and disappears like magic rather than streaking

I prefer the autoglym glass polish. Wipe on, let it dry for a minute then just wipe it off. Great results every time.

Kitchen cleaner and a cloth to strip off the grease, then glass cleaner and blue towel.

Change the pollen/odour/cabin filter as well, makes a noticeable difference to how quickly it gets filthy again, especially if you dona lot of driving on busy roads.

Meths (?) The purple stuff. Works a treat 🙂

Fast Glass for me too. Have tried several but Fast Glass and a decent MF cloth works perfectly.

Although what liquid you use will determine if it’ll smear or not the quality of finish is down to technique. Small circular areas lightly wetted and dried immediately with the chaser cloth.

I use cheap 75p glass cleaner with vinegar from just about anywhere and clean it in direct sunlight with the above technique.

A T-shirt off the passenger seat and muttering alot

I used to work valeting cars. The grey film that appears on the insides of the windows is plasticiser film, the last problem that motor industry hasn’t succeeded in solving. The plasticiser evaporates out of the vinyls inside the car and re-settles on everything.

DO NOT use Windowlene cream, it works well but get a drop on your dashboard and you’ll never get it off. Best solution is a slightly damp microfibre cloth or towel. Park the car so that the sun is shining on the windscreen but your view is of something dark like foliage and you’ll be able to see the grey film clearly. It does reappear quite soon after you’ve cleaned it off; I keep a cloth in the car and give it a wipe whenever there’s a bit of damp inside the car such as first thing in the morning.

Fast Glass and a couple of freshly laundered microfibres. Do it once with one towel and then again with the other.

Nilglass (get it from Lakeland or, now, B&Q as well). I suspect it’s little more than a vinegar solution, but spray on, then use a freshly laundered microfibre (no conditioner) to rub it in, then use a second dry microfibre and rub until it dries to a squeak. Fantastic result but it’s hard to manouvre your arm to rub it comfortably on the front windscreen without pulling a muscle. I’ve never used the Autoglym product, so no idea whether that’s easier, although the results with Nilglass could’t be better IMO.
If you’re ultra pernickety, I’m told that paper contains silica and can leave tiny scratches and swirls over time, which can pick up light and contribute to subtle hazing at night, if you do it a lot (one of the reasons you shouldn’t clean spectacles with tissue apparently). I’ve no idea whether this is true or not but suspect that the scratches on the outer surface would render any internal scratches irrelevant?

If you can find a way of getting a coating of carnauba wax on the glass by spraying something like Mr Sheen on it without getting any on the dashboard, the rubbing job is much easier as the wax helps the cloth to slip. The wax doesn’t make the windscreen smeary.

I’ve not had the best results with AG fast glass. Applying and buffing with MF cloths. Still leaves marks.

I’ve had best results going over with a slightly damp MF cloth.

Gave it a go with IPA on blue roll this morning. Dull day so will have to wait and see how that looks driving into a setting sun.

I’ve used alsorts over the years from fast glass to megs etc

Recently tried some of the nilglass stuff mentioned above. £5 for 2 litres in b and q and it’s the easiest to use and gives really good results.

A second for the Fast Glass

Windowlene wipe works fine here

The ‘fog’ is from the formation of unwanted 13ring cyclic esters produced when polyester polyols are used in the manufacture of polyurethane foams that are then flame laminated to head linings/seating /door cards/ etc etc.

‘low fog’ polyols are available which stop this but not all automotive manufactures spec them.

What car do you own?

Im chief engineer tinkerer for a large automotive PU manufacturer and an absolute blast at dinner parties…….

The ‘fog’ is from the formation of unwanted 13ring cyclic esters produced when polyester polyols are used in the manufacture of polyurethane foams that are then flame laminated to head linings/seating /door cards/ etc etc.

That’s easy for you to say!

Im chief engineer tinkerer for a large automotive PU manufacturer and an absolute blast at dinner parties…

Got given a bottle of this, seems to work pretty well. Smells nice too

We used to use pretty much any kind of spray on cleaner and news paper when I worked for a hire fleet. I’ve never found any type of cloth or paper towel that works as well as newspaper.

A small amount of meths and a microfibre cloth. Stinks for a bit and not encouraged with the doors closed but gets all trace of smears away.
Edit: I have found that any cloth used which has been washed and dried using fabric softener complicates the anti smear aspect.

Just good old newspaper. Perfect. Anything else is just complicated for the sake of it.
Having said that something liquid helps to loosen the snot(sneeze) blobs.

I use a cloth.

I always find an Angora rabbit works well for screen cleaning.

Are dashboard wipes any good for removing the plasticizer to prevent build-up again?

I just use Halfords screen cleaner.

The trick is in the technique:

1. Spray onto microfibre cloth A and rub the screen vigorously.
2. Buff with microfibre cloth B.

Just like the two bucket method for the outside of the car,this avoids smearing the dirt around the screen.