Six easy car window cleaning hacks and tips to try

Long gone are the days of plucky young blokes at the servo offering to clean your windscreen. Your parents might have these stories, but they sound a lot like ancient history to us. These days we need to do it ourselves. Here are six easy car window cleaning hacks to try so you can keep on singing and seeing.

You can’t count on the service station to have a squeegee available in good condition so, for a few dollars, pick one up at a car store and keep it in your boot. This means you can clean your windscreen any time you like, with cola, water, or even your own cleaner fluid. More on that next.

Don’t fancy spending the money on a special window cleaning fluid for your reservoir? Make your own. If you have some isopropyl, the kind of cleaner for preparing your home’s walls for hanging hooks or cleaning computer screens, or methylated spirits, you can mix this with water and a small amount of dishwashing detergent to make the perfect window cleaning concoction. This fluid can be used on the inside of the windscreen too.

The mixture:

30ml dishwashing detergent

180ml rubbing alcohol like isopropyl or methylated spirits

3.8 litres of water

Pro-tip: Use some leftover vodka from last night’s party or another white spirit of choice. Otherwise, vinegar is also a good alternative.

Keep some baby wipes or wet wipes handy in your glove box. They contain handy cleaning agents which are not only helpful for cleaning up the general mess in the car but perfect for the inside of the windscreen. A good alternative to a wet wipe is a microfibre cloth and good ol’ elbow grease – this method is reusable too!

You’ve heard the one about people leaving their dentures in cola overnight to clean them, haven’t you? It’s a trick as old as cola itself. But have you heard about cleaning your car’s windows with the world’s most-drank soft drink? Probably not. Let’s call this an emergency hack since service stations have squeegees and water for you to use but cola will do the job in a particularly dirty moment. Such an occasion might be when you’re driving through the countryside and, like portents of the apocalypse, a flock of bugs smear your windscreen opaque with their gooey innards. In a pinch, pour some cola on it. See our steps.

Steps:

Pour some cola on a rag or directly on your windscreen and get rubbing. The acidic nature of the cola will help break-down those grimy little critters that have splattered across your screen. You’ll need some water to wash it off and do try to avoid getting cola on your paint. If you don’t have water handy just use your car’s windscreen washers.

All the cleaners in the world won’t work if grime is getting smeared about the place by worn-out wiper blades. Make a visual inspection and make sure your blades are smooth. If they are dirty, use a little bit of your concoction from before to clean them up. If they are worn, or you notice they aren’t wiping the rain away like they used to, buy some new ones and slide them on. It’s easy.

There are two sides to every clean windscreen story: the inside and the outside. When you clean one side, clean the other. This seems obvious but it is easy to overlook. It would be silly to give the outside a good going over to have inside grime give you a bad time.

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