Clever Hack to Keep Your Car's Windshield Clean, Eliminate Wiper Noise, and Reduce Wear

Wax it with Nu Finish car polish. He lives in Texas, so I wonder what it does with ice? A comment below the video claims it's much better than Rain-X. BTW, in another video he also recommends Nu Finish to wax cars (actually it's a synthetic polish) as it's specifically designed to do.

https://www.amazon.com/Nu-Finish-Paste-Car-Polish/dp/B000AME50O

A while back I emailed various expensive car wax manufacturers and asked them to provide technical test data to prove their claims of things like longevity and UV shielding of a car's clear coat and paint. I was super skeptical of all of the claims and suspected the entire topic of car waxes was primarily scientifically unsupported BS. Of the few that actually responded, all of them said they didn't even HAVE such data.



Why I use Nu Finish car wax on my windshield or "What wiper blade companies don't want you to know!

I'm sooo trying this

For me, silicone products like Rain-X (and presumably NuFinish) actually make it harder to see--more distracting, I guess---not easier. And I don't know about NuFinish but if you decide you don't like Rain-X on the windshield after you've already put it on...tough luck. The stuff takes forever to wear off (which is great if you like Rain-X, of course).

prfesser said:

For me, silicone products like Rain-X (and presumably NuFinish) actually make it harder to see--more distracting, I guess---not easier. And I don't know about NuFinish but if you decide you don't like Rain-X on the windshield after you've already put it on...tough luck. The stuff takes forever to wear off (which is great if you like Rain-X, of course).

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I'm with prfesser. Back in the day, I tried it. The beaded water is a lot harder to see through than sheeted water. I tried removing the treatment and really couldn't, but fortunately I worked in a lab and had access to a hydrophilic silane compound and put that on over the original treatment. The water sheeted excellently due to reduced surface tension and was easy to see through in between wiper swipes.

use a clay bar on the windshield prior to application.

I've been told a fresh onion, cut in half and rubbed on your windshield will also help rain & wet bead off..

Aparenly also helps beat the dreaded "needing to scrape the ice / frost off on a cold winter's morning"..

prfesser said:

For me, silicone products like Rain-X (and presumably NuFinish) actually make it harder to see--more distracting, I guess---not easier. And I don't know about NuFinish but if you decide you don't like Rain-X on the windshield after you've already put it on...tough luck. The stuff takes forever to wear off (which is great if you like Rain-X, of course).

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I used it when we lived in Ohio on my Model A and '69 Camaro. The more vertical and flatter the windshield = less distortion.

We found that moving from Ohio to Colorado really helped to eliminate wiper noise and reduce wear... we have cactus growing in our yard, pretty arid.

As for keeping the windshield clean, Colorado is good for that too. Because windshields don;t last long here, they get busted by road debris.

Here's another of those things that most of you who live in "normal" parts of the country probably don't have to deal with:

'Round here, there is a LOT of dry dusty dirt. And it's red. Dust storms sometimes are like y'all have probably seen in movies. Now, occasionally, when conditions are right, it gets really windy just before a rainstorm comes through. What happens is that the air gets filled with red dust. Then when the rain moves in, it picks up all that dust in the air. The result is raining red mud. I mean really thick mud. There have been times when I'm driving in this, and the mud comes down so thick that my windshield wipers simply cannot keep up. I have to pull over, wait out the storm, then manually clean the mud off my windshield before moving again. Thankfully such rain squalls are usually fast and hard...this rarely happens during those rainstorms that just keep coming down. It's pretty wild though.

Wonder how NuFinish on my windshield would deal with that. I bet it would work pretty well.

s6

tomsteve said:

use a clay bar on the windshield prior to application.

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If you aren't be facetious, since that's a method used prior to waxing a car, Scotty Kilmer recommends isopropyl alcohol. That should be adequate.

Marc_G said:

I'm with prfesser. Back in the day, I tried it. The beaded water is a lot harder to see through than sheeted water. I tried removing the treatment and really couldn't, but fortunately I worked in a lab and had access to a hydrophilic silane compound and put that on over the original treatment.

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The videos above seem to show exactly the opposite. Anyway, a recommended fix for that if the videos which show that isn't a problem are somehow incorrect - turn on your windshield wipers. Also, just like car wax, the windshield finish doesn't last forever.

Claimed advantages of Nu Finish over Rain-X - lasts longer, doesn't gum up.

From a truck forum, a post made on 3 Mar:

Lexus IS350 (Wife) RainX vs Toyota Tundra (Me) NuFinish
Started Jan 15th.
Wipers cleaned on both with denatured alcohol. Both garaged. Similar mileage and weather/car washes (weekly).
Wipers making noise and things starting to stick on Lexus (RainX). I’ll let you know when Tundra wipers start acting up.

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Rain-X Glass Water Repellent

This water-repellent windshield treatment is a great supplement to wipers for helping you see out of your windshield in heavy rain—and for making it easier to see out of your side and rear windows. It forms a hydrophobic coating that causes water to bead up and quickly slide off the glass.

stealth6 said:

'Round here, there is a LOT of dry dusty dirt.

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Where might that be?

lakeroadster said:

Where might that be?

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Looks like this:

Winston said:

If you aren't being facetious, since that's a method used prior to waxing a car, Scotty Kilmer recommends isopropyl alcohol. That should be adequate.

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not being facetious. clay bars are also used on glass. so are polishing compounds.
alcohol is in a lot of glass cleaners. alcohol alone doesnt remove all of the contaminants on glass.
i clean with glass cleaner, clay bar, polish with meguiars m205 with my DA polisher and an orange lake country foam pad.
do a search for "clay bar auto glass" and "polishing auto glass." great results doing both.

tomsteve said:

not being facetious. clay bars are also used on glass. so are polishing compounds.
alcohol is in a lot of glass cleaners. alcohol alone doesnt remove all of the contaminants on glass.
i clean with glass cleaner, clay bar, polish with meguiars m205 with my DA polisher and an orange lake country foam pad.
do a search for "clay bar auto glass" and "polishing auto glass." great results doing both.

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I did not know that even glass is clay barred.

If one needs to deep clean the windshield or other glass on a vehicle, after the Windex or washing is done, use acetone. Pour some on a rag and wipe. It will remove virtually anything left on the glass. Don't get it on your painted surfaces, though, or the paint will be damaged.
Easy!

Allen

I was a Harley-Davidson test rider for 16 years. We rode in all types of weather, from 20 degrees to 105, wet or dry. We had to deal with water beading on both sides of the windshield, as well as our face shield. We tried using wax but found that it scratched the plastic windshields. Rain-X didn't. I don't know about glass but, on plastic, you had to make sure to apply the Rain-X in a straight line, up and down. If you put it on in a swirling motion it would make an unholy mess when you got caught out in the rain and fog.

Raindog said:

I was a Harley-Davidson test rider for 16 years. We rode in all types of weather, from 20 degrees to 105, wet or dry. We had to deal with water beading on both sides of the windshield, as well as our face shield. We tried using wax but found that it scratched the plastic windshields. Rain-X didn't. I don't know about glass but, on plastic, you had to make sure to apply the Rain-X in a straight line, up and down. If you put it on in a swirling motion it would make an unholy mess when you got caught out in the rain and fog.

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Lots of great info in this Nu Finish FAQ:

https://www.nufinish.com/faq/car-polish

including this:

How do I remove the white haze left behind on the plastic trim on my automobile?

Plastic trim is porous and sometimes difficult to remove. The white discoloration you are seeing is the clay that is in all car polishes...

The clay could possibly be the mild abrasive that scratches clear plastic.