7 Best Car Window Cleaner Tools
Updated: Mar. 03, 2023Having trouble cleaning your car's windows? It's tough without the right tools and know-how. Check out our favorite car window cleaner tools.
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Buying Car Window Cleaner Tools
If you care about maintaining your vehicle’s appearance, don’t forget about your windows. Clean windows are important for driving safely. Trouble is, glass surfaces are notoriously hard to clean perfectly.
Luckily, it doesn’t have to be this way for you. Before getting started, here are a few things to know about cleaning your vehicle’s glass surfaces properly:
- Cleaning car windows requires products specific to the task.
- Automotive glass cleaners are different from household ones. Dirty auto glass usually attracts more grease and grit than household glass. Good auto glass cleaners remove this grime fully; household ones leave streaks.
- Both sides of auto glass need cleaning. The inside of your car windows get dirty, too.
- Washing windows with car soap, water and a sponge is the first step to cleaning them properly, but it’s certainly not the only step. A good glass cleaner and something to keep water from drying and leaving marks on the clean glass are just as critical.
- Don’t forget drying. Water left to dry naturally will almost certainly leave small but noticeable marks behind. Drying your car at the right time with the right towel matters.
I’ve spent years researching and testing the best car window cleaner tools on the market. Keep reading for a list of my absolute favorites.
Best Car Soap
This car soap from Chemical Guys is the best exterior vehicle cleaning product I’ve tried. It removes mud, dirt, bugs and bird poop off the body and windows of my car faster and with less elbow grease than any other brand I’ve used.
I chalk this up to this soap being highly concentrated compared to competitors. It quickly generates a thick, grease and dirt-cutting foam when I scrub it over my vehicle.
Best Car Sponge
I’m not a fan of cleaning my car windows with traditional sponges. They’re large, awkward and not all that effective, especially when you need to reach across the windshield to scrub a stubborn streak of dirt. That’s why my favorite sponge isn’t a sponge at all!
I first tried these microfiber car wash mitts in 2021. They clean better than traditional sponges. They’re far less awkward to handle because they fit over your hands. And you can exert more pressure, leading to a more effective wash.
Best Glass Cleaner
Washing your car windows is all well and good. But if you’re as picky as I am, you’ll probably notice streaks on the glass once the water from your last rinse dries. Minerals in the water cause this, and it’s especially hard to avoid when you have hard water, as I do.
That’s why I started buying Invisible Glass cleaner. A few squirts on my car windows, some wipes with a microfiber cloth, and those annoying mineral streaks are history. I haven’t found any other product that solves this problem so perfectly.
Best Microfiber Cloths
When I apply the glass cleaner in the previous slide to my car windows, I usually use these microfiber cloths. Each package comes with green cleaning cloths and blue, fine-weave cloths for removing streaks.
In practice, I don’t use the green cloths often. But the blue ones work great as a glass cleaner. Many microfiber cloths billed as lint-free still give off small pieces of fiber, but I’ve never had this problem with the blue cloths.
Best Reaching Tool
Because I’ve got long arms, I don’t usually need a reaching tool to clean my car windows and windshield. My wife isn’t so lucky. She had serious trouble cleaning the central part of the windshield.
Then she discovered this reaching tool. It’s strong, lightweight and extendable. It even comes with a microfiber cloth custom-fitted over the cleaning pad at the end. My wife loves the extra 24 inches of reach so much she rarely lets me wash the car!
Best Interior Glass Cleaner
We have a young child and a dog, which means cleaning the outside of our car windows alone doesn’t cut it. Dirt, sticky finger and nose prints, smears of donut filling, and occasionally an entire packet of ketchup on the inside glass surfaces often require special attention.
That’s why I bought this interior glass cleaner. It cleans not only the insides of our car windows, but also the central console and seats. Most other glass cleaners aren’t so versatile.
Best Water Repellent
You can do the best job in the world cleaning your car windows, but unless you have some way to keep them clean, they’ll quickly develop streaks and watermarks again. I used to have this problem until my father introduced me to Rain-X.
When applied properly, this product repels water droplets so they never stay put long enough to dry and leave marks. I haven’t seen any other product this effective. I now apply a little Rain-X with a microfiber cloth every time I wash my vehicle.
