Car window cleaning.

Jel999

Jel999

Messages
663
Location
Bury St Edmunds
I seem to remember there being a fella on here who was into car valeting. Hopefully he or someone else can help me. My problem is that on my wife's car, the offside rear window has at some time had suction cups stuck all over it & despite much cleaning, shows all these circular marks all over it in the mornings when it's a bit nippy. Any ideas how to remove these marks ? Many thanks in advance for all suggestions.
 
Dabble you say Wazzster ? He'll be telling you what's the best type of mouthwash to clean your potty mouth out now !
'Fraid all I can suggest is possibly jeweller's rouge Jel, assuming you've exhausted the conventional resources.

JohnnyO. o/
 
JohnnyO said:
Dabble you say Wazzster ? He'll be telling you what's the best type of mouthwash to clean your potty mouth out now !
'Fraid all I can suggest is possibly jeweller's rouge Jel, assuming you've exhausted the conventional resources.

JohnnyO. o/
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Is that because he surpasses the dabbling level or the opposite?
 
Have you tried a good quality window cleaner? (not the rubbish you get in Halfords) you could also try a clay bar, it's surprising how much contamination that a good claying of the car picks up.
 
Diggy87 said:
Have you tried a good quality window cleaner? (not the rubbish you get in Halfords) you could also try a clay bar, it's surprising how much contamination that a good claying of the car picks up.
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I've only used Nilglass so far but it's supposed to be very good. I've used 0000 grade wire wool (dry) on the outside of windscreens before to remove flies & other crap with excellent results so might try that but surely that's not necessary.

I've heard that a 50/50 mix of isopropyl alcohol/distilled water might work so i'll try that too. God knows where I buy the alcohol though, don't suppose the offy will be any good ;-)
 
The clay bar should work, it will leave some marring on the glass but glass cleaner will clean it off afterwards. If you pm your address I'll send some clay out to you and you can give that a go to save shelling out on a full bar
 
Jel999 said:
I've only used Nilglass so far but it's supposed to be very good. I've used 0000 grade wire wool (dry) on the outside of windscreens before to remove flies & other crap with excellent results so might try that but surely that's not necessary.

I've heard that a 50/50 mix of isopropyl alcohol/distilled water might work so i'll try that too. God knows where I buy the alcohol though, don't suppose the offy will be any good ;-)
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Ebay for Isopropyl it's all much of a muchness so I use whichever seller with a good rep is cheapest.
 
Fed up with the Mrs spending £80 a pop to get an oven cleaned I hunted down the kit and chemicals the pros use, she was not happy...including pro window cleaning juice (for car and house) . I am not a detailer god forbid and even if I were I wouldn't admit it but perhaps I should start by not calling her scrubber.

http://cleaningspot.co.uk/acatalog/Car_valeting_cleaning_chemicals.html
 
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Ethanol (EtOH) is a good dual-solvent so might be worth picking up a stubby of vodka as this is the least 'tainted' of the boozes you can pick up readily. Chuck some of that on a rag and give it a good scrub, it might do the job while you consider buying isopropyl alcohol (IPA). There's not going to be a huge amount of difference in the ability of IPA vs EtOH for cleaning crap off a window - it's going to be oils, some plastic residue and probably a bit of water-soluble matter there, in which case EtOH should do the job just fine. Alternatively, start off with some lemon/orange juice and clean up thereafter with vodka and then water - acidic and surfactant qualities of the juice (citric acid + limonene) plus the aforementioned qualities of the alcohol should take 90% of the gubbins off, minimum.

Hope this helps!

Edit: link above, citrus degreasers, tend to contain orange terpines (d-limonene, mainly) along with something like sodium hydroxide (aka. lye or caustic soda). They're quite good but you should be alright for relatively light staining with the suggestions earlier in my post. :)
 
I could not be more specific with the above link, I wasn't recommending the domestic citrus degreaser for windows (the degreaser is indeed lye) but the specific car glass cleaner further down the menu which I believe is mainly ethanol.
 
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antdad said:
I should have been more specific with the link, I wasn't recommending the domestic citrus degreaser for windows (the degreaser is indeed lye) but the specific car glass cleaner further down the menu which I believe is mainly ethanol.
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My apologies! It's probably a mixture of IPA and methanol (MeOH, probably only in v. small %), along with some non-ionic surfactants or similar. It might have something highly-volatile like 2-butanone which would aid evaporation without leaving streaks or something, though that's a bit of a guess. I think the OP would be fine with lemon juice, ethanol and water in that order. Dry with kitchen towel or microfibre and buff with microfibre.
 
antdad said:
No need to apologise, it isn't ethanol but 3-butoxypropan-2-ol, a butile ether I think.

http://ftp.hginternational.com/UNITED KINGDOM/SAFETY DATA SHEET/gb.en.231 HG car windscreen cleaner 1.00.pdf
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I guess I wasn't too far off with my 2-butanone guess! :D It also contains bronopol as a preservative which I know to be fairly nasty stuff, as well as perfumes. It probably works particularly well but I'd rather use lemon juice and vodka. It'll probably do not far off as good a job.
 
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