After the last few days of rain and also a lot of bug splatter on the front windshield, plus the back glass which was also dirty and didn't bead water, I decided to clean both thoroughly and apply some Rain-X. The basic cleaning was simple, I just used a copious amount of Simple Green Glass Cleaner and some paper towels, 2x or 3x application depending on the place. There were a lot of bugs that tried to get through the windshield, and they weren't coming off easy. There were also quite a few patches of unidentifiable gunk from the road, trees, wherever.

After the regular glass cleaner, I took a bit of a chance and used a Mothers Speed Clay 2.0 with some warm, soapy dish detergent (Dawn) in a bucket and gently scrubbed off the remaining tenacious flecks of bug debris and other schmutz that was stuck to both pieces of glass. The Speed Clay 2.0 is not a clay bar, exactly - at least not the ones I've seen. It is a foam compound pad with some kind of mildly abrasive and tacky surface coating, mounted to the bottom of an ergonomic plastic shell, like a big computer mouse, so you can hold on to it more easily. You need to lubricate the surface while using it so I just dipped it in the sudsy water and went slowly and carefully, removing the bugs and other little flecks of debris on the glass. It worked beautifully and I was surprised. I tried it out on a small area first to make sure it wasn't going to scratch the glass, and I didn't use a lot of pressure. It should just glide over the surface, basically. A few passes in a couple of places, and everything on the glass was gone.

After that, I wiped it again with a microfiber towel and applied isopropyl alcohol using another clean towel. It dries almost instantly and requires no buffing, and really leaves the glass without any residue. The isopropyl alcohol also dries in such a way that you can see any little spots or gunk that you missed.

Then I applied the Rain-X (original liquid) according to the instructions on the bottle: in the shade, outside temp. about 60 degrees. Rub on with clean microfiber towel, wait until it hazes, buff off with another clean towel.

---===<<Well>>===--


Windshield with Rain-X, prepped with glass cleaner and Mothers Speed Clay 2.0.


The results were pretty awesome. The windshield is CLEAN, and I mean microscopically squeaky clean, and now it has Rain-X on it to go with the new wipers. Back glass also. The Mothers Speed Clay 2.0 is worth adding to your arsenal of paint and glass care products. It's easy to hold, easy to use, it works, and it's easy to rinse off and use again. It took the nastier dried up bug gunk off the glass with almost no pressure and it left zero scratches behind that I can discern (as I said, I dipped it in sudsy water beforehand.)

I'd also like to mention something else, because it inspired this post and this product mention. I know we're not necessarily supposed to plug products and companies, but this was above and beyond. A few days ago while waiting to do this, I was truly impressed by one of the people who works for Mothers out in Huntington Beach, CA. I was having problems with their website. Looking at some of their product categories, I was getting error messages even after creating a login, etc. So I wrote a terse (kind of nasty) email to their tech. support contact person, Jim Dvorak (available on the website) and basically griped about how their website wasn't exactly easy to use and how error messages while browsing products might have a tendency to turn people off and make them consider going elsewhere.

I expected no response.

Instead, to my surprise, within an hour Jim called me back on the phone number I gave during my login and he took the time to have a 15 minute conversation with me. He gave me some great detailing tips and he knew his products - he helped me out with the Speed Clay 2.0, and he was genuinely apologetic for the website issues (which have been fixed, from what I can tell). In this day and age of sitting and waiting for unresponsive chat people who can't answer even the simplest questions, etc., etc. I was impressed and pleasantly surprised. I would recommend Mothers products to anyone and especially the Speed Clay 2.0. Give them a look. I have no affiliation with them other than having bought this product via Amazon, but I was astounded by Jim's commitment to customer service. </company plug>

https://mothers.com/collections/speed

I didn't take a picture of the back window, but it's just as clean. I expect the Rain-X will work the way it has in the past. Both pieces took me about 40 minutes total and I was taking my time. BTW I was surprised at how well Dawn dish detergent cleans up - it does not streak!

 

Nice write-up. I use Optimum Opti-Glass and get well over a year out of an application. RainX will be done in a month. RainX was great when it first came out, but there are a dozen plus products that have passed it by, both in terms of durability and water sheeting/beading ability. Opti-Glass has the added benefit of making the glass more chip resistant. If the Optimum product is too spendy, PPG Aquapel will also blow RainX out of the water (pun intended.)

 

Thanks, you're probably correct. I only bought the small bottle (3.5 ounces) for just that reason, to see how long it lasts. I liked the Mothers Speed Clay though. I have some health problems and needed something easy to apply but effective, and it worked. 40 minutes for both windows with all four steps and the Mothers only took a few minutes per window. I'm doing the paint next, I'll have a write up about that, I'm going to use the Mothers, one other product, and then seal and wax with Collinite 845, which was recommended to me by a friend who does detailing professionally in Florida. More than anything I wanted to solicit some other opinions on products and give a shout out to Jim Dvorak. Really a good guy, and knows his stuff.

 

Update: So, how does it work? I took a short trip this morning on the highway and there were some medium-dark rain clouds converging. As I crested one hill the rain was busting loose on the other side and I drove right into a medium-strength downpour at 75. The raindrops hit the windshield and exploded into a supergalactic spray of dots that shot up the glass at 75 MPH and disappeared. It was medium-strength rain and I never had to touch the wipers. The water is beading down to an infinitesimal size almost too small to see and in larger droplets that get carried right off the windshield. Then the tiny drops dry up.

So the Rain-X is working, but more importantly the little droplets of water are not encountering anything to stop them, change their course or slow them down on the glass itself. So the Speed Clay 2.0 did its job. If this lasts a while, even if I have to buy a different hydrophobic product, the Speed Clay can be reapplied in 5 minutes and appeared to have no wear on the pad from this first use, so it should hopefully do the entire surface of the car and come back for more.

The back glass got a few droplets on it but same story, nothing stuck and I didn't have to use the wiper. So it works.

 

Opti-Glass isn't any more difficult to apply than RainX. The key part is the same...starting with a thoroughly clean windshield.

If you PM me your mailing address, I'll send you a vial of Aquapel to try next time.