Glass Cleaners Tested

Keep your windows clean and smear-free with one of these 14 glass sprays

Auto Express Car Reviews

September 2011

Adding a sparkle to the glass is the finishing touch when cleaning your car. It gives the cabin a lift and maximises visibility, especially in the dark.

While a wipe with a sponge will deal with external glass, you need specialist help on the inside, where a fine, oily film builds up, which can be difficult to remove without smearing. A good glass cleaner can make such a tricky job quick and easy.

Tougher grime may benefit from a glass polish, but for most regular cleaning duties a trigger spray is more than capable. There are dozens on the market, most costing well under £10, so we tried 14 to find our glass act.

How we did it
Performance differences between glass cleaners are hard to measure, so we made our test tougher. The main problem which cleaners face is shifting the oily film that builds up on the inside of windows. So, we used a glass pane with one side painted to reveal any residue, and tackled an oily strip with minimal amounts of cleaner and wiping.

We used a covered foam pad to ensure even pressure, and tested three products side-by-side to maintain consistency. We took the results of five attempts before a final test on standard interior glass. Price excluding delivery cost was taken in to account – although the results were weighted towards cleaning power.

Verdict

Despite our stiffer test regime, the performance differences were small – apart from our top two, which were well ahead of the field.

Comma retains its crown from our last test in 2008 thanks to a brilliant combination of cleaning power and price. It was pushed hard by the effective Armor All, which made our cleaning tests look easy. The final podium place goes to the keenly priced Angelwax.

Also tested
Your car doesn’t have room for the 14 cleaning products on test – and neither did we. These four all did a decent job, but were not outstanding enough to make the final cut.

Auto Finesse Crystal Glass Cleaner
£9.95, 500ml ★★★
Spautopia Purex Glass
£7.99, 500ml ★★★
Mer Rapid Glass Cleaner
£7.99, 500ml ★★★
Turtle Wax ICE Glass Cleaner
£7.99, 500ml ★★★

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1 Comment

Why not buy...

...Mr Muscle Glass Cleaner for £1.99 out of Tesco?

Seriously though, would the top Comma Glass Cleaner @4.29 be twice as good as a bog standard home glass cleaner?

By dan_gers on 4 October, 2011, 4:23pm

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