My Glass Cleaning Method

[Anthony Orosco]

Of all the chores within auto detailing glass cleaning, as in getting it streak free and void of all smudges and smears, is perhaps the most frustrating. Just when you think it's perfect you catch a streak or you pull it outside and your paint shines like the sun but your glass is one big ugly smear from one side to the other.

 

Glass cleaners, which claim to remedy this, only seem to add to the frustration. So for a good number of years now I have only been cleaning glass with water. I haven't purchased glass cleaner in a very long time, especially after finding out that many glass cleaners are mainly water with a small percentage being any actual surfactant.

 

So here is how I tackle glass. My tools are:

 

2 microfiber towels - 1 is damp and the other is dry.

1 silicone squeegee

 

 

 

 

 

The first step is to wet your towel. I like to wring out just enough water so that a trail of water is left on the glass but not so much that it starts to run down the glass. This takes a bit of practice to get it right. I then wipe the glass down with the wet towel making sure to cover all outside areas of the glass first, at least twice, then move into the center. So I box the outside first then bring the towel in to finish the center area, again doing each area at least twice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I take the silicone bladed squeegee and starting at one end or corner of the glass I make a swipe across the glass (sometimes a full swipe from end to end, other times a few short swipes, depending of the size of glass) and either shake off the excess water or remove it using my wet mf towel. I do this until almost all water is removed. I then take my dry (usually a waffle weave) mf towel and buff that area of glass completely dry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now you can also get smaller blades than the one I have here for smaller windows but I have found that the silicone type squeegee works better than the black rubber type. You may need to wet your towel every so often and then wring it out remembering not to have it too damp nor to dry.

 

Well those are my glass cleaning tips and so far they have produced for me great results.

 

Anthony

[Rik]

Good method Anthony

 

But instead of wetting the MF towel wouldn't a better solution be using a spray bottle of water to wet the windows.

[Anthony Orosco]

Good method Amthony

 

But insted of wetting the MF towel wouldn't a better solution be using a spray bottle of water to wet the windows with.

 

Yes you can use a spray bottle also but with a wet towel I'm able to control better where the water goes. Also the scrubbing of the towel helps the overall cleaning.

 

Anthony

[Brad K]

Well, I just bought a silicon squeegee that looks very similar to Anthony's, and I'm quite excited to try it out on glass. I've been quite frustrated lately with getting glass perfect....we'll see if I can get there with this method.

[Anthony Orosco]

Congrats Brad.

 

My tip would for you to practice on getting the water within the towel just right which takes some practice. You don't need it really wet, just enough so that the water clings to the glass.

Hope all goes well for you.

 

Anthony

[Andy White]

If you have a steam cleaner, wouldn't you just use the residual moisture on the window?

 

As I don't have a steam cleaner yet I use a foaming class cleaner and a couple of MF towels and never had an issue.

[Guest]

We use steam to clean glass, and it is fool proof and fast, but not all cars get steamed, so other methods are also used. From doing mobile windshield repair for the last 5 years, and having 50 techs doing the same working for us, we have found 2 methods that always work for streak free glass. The first is rubbing alcohol and paper towels, the key is the paper towel, use a MF, cotton, or shop towel and it will streak, but a paper towel and a little pressure get you great looking glass. The other method we have adopted is to use OID, and a MF towel, this also works great, and has the added bonus of providing a bit of water repelency (like RainX) to the glass.