One rainy night, Aunty was driving to a company party dinner, and it was really difficult to see through the windshield even with the wipers going full blast. The windshield de-fogger option on the AC was used, which didn’t do much because it was not the inside of the glass, but the outside that seemed to have an irregular haze on it that made driving at night a bit dangerous.
While at the dinner, Aunty mentioned it to Winfield in conversation, and he suggested using steel wool on the glass.
Really? Doesn’t that sound scratchy and potentially damaging? So Aunty google-searched, and sure enough, some of the professional auto detailers out there mentioned using finest grade steel wool, dry (important to use dry) on glass windshields and windows to clean off and clear up glass.
By now, Aunty figured out that it was the car wash wax that had left residue on her windshield, got out a pad of 0000 steel wool and started buffing off wax and grit on the front windshield. It didn’t take long and soon the glass felt smooth and slippery. The steel wool pad seemed to have gathered some wax on it after the easy job was over. As an additional precaution, Aunty also wiped down the rubber wiper blades in case they also had wax on it.
A few days later, while driving home in the evening, it began to rain. Goody! Aunty turned on the wipers, and swish swish swish, they squeegeed the glass clean and clear, giving Aunty such a nice sense of accomplishment as her own auto detailer.
Next up is waxing the car by hand instead of taking the easy way out at McKinley Car Wash.
Hmmmm. It has been awhile. Aunty needs to think about that.
Whaaaaa? Interesting!
Fo real, yeah Jalna? I thought I would have to compound the glass – and THAT would have been too much elbow grease for me.
What a great idea! Thanks for sharing this cool tip. I will let David know about it.
One of the professional detailers also put Rain-X on the windshield after the steel wool buffing. I thought about doing that too but I couldn’t find our Rain-X bottle – I might have tossed it in my mission of cleaning out stuff.
This tip wouldn’t apply to car windows that have an exterior darkening film applied – though I wonder about those, if they are applied on the inside rather than the outside.