One of the issues I think most of us have is smeary windows, both inside and out. When your car is new the windows are usually spotless with great visibility. Those who wash their MINI regularly will probably use Snow Foam, Car Shampoo, rinse, dry with a Microfibre cloth, then apply a proprietary glass cleaner like Fast glass, Nilglas, etc. All good and all work to a certain degree. I have been cleaning windows this way for years.
Into the freshly cleaned car you go and immediately you spot a smear! Shock horror, you have just cleaned the window. Did you clean the inside too? Probably just a wipe round. Dashboard cleaners like Armour all have lots of silicone and that evaporates and ends up on the inside of you ‘clean’ windscreen. A good sneeze and catch it in a handkerchief if you are quick, but windscreen and steering wheel gets the full blast most of the time. All these deposits and more build up. Cleaning or just wiping moves the deposits around. The outside is even more severe. Deposits from the road, dead insects, acid rain, car spray from the car in front all getting pressure from the wind to grind the debris into the glass. I think you get my point.
In a vain search for a good OCD method of cleaning glass I searched YouTube, I know a bit sad, but there are simply loads of hints, tricks, workflows, pro valet ideas. They all sort of work if you have a day or so to clean just the glass. I have tried a fair number of these. One method to me stood out and worked – both on my newish F56 and the wife’s 10-year-old truck.
First up is to wash the car in the usual way that you prefer. Wipe down the windscreen just to dry it. Next up is the part one of the magic. Get a piece of a clay bar, or your kids’ modelling clay, moisten the window with clay lube or water mist, and thoroughly move the clay bar up and down to pick up and remove deposits. You need to do this part on both sides of the window. You can then polish the windows with magic Number 2, Flitz Metal polish. It is very lightly abrasive but is finer than the finest polish I have ever tried. You can use a fine microfibre cloth or a Cloth ball on your drill. The polish is so gentle the rubber around the glass will not mark. Just keep it moving and do not let it dry. Magic Number 3. A fine mist of glass cleaner; the best out there, in my opinion, is Stoner Invisible Glass. Wipe it around with one cloth and dry it off with an Ultrafine Microfibre cloth. I promise you that you will be amazed. Do the same on the inside of all your windows. It works for me. All the products are available of that well-known auction site, some come from across the pond but there are some UK based stockists. Here ends the first lesson.
What’s new at OX4?
Birthday parties around the 60th birthday of MINI. The 1275GT is 50 years old and this signalled the end of the Cooper and S production, for the first time.
A look into the future and we now have the promise of the MINI Electric.
To mark the motor show debut of the new MINI Electric, the brand’s first all-electric powered series-production model drove the 249 mile journey from the BMW Group headquarters in Munich to the Frankfurt Motor Show, to take its place on the MINI stand. Elena Eder, MINI Electric Project Manager, completed the journey and proved that electric mobility doesn’t have to be limited to day-to-day journeys. With a battery range of up to 145 miles, the car only needed one charging stop along the way. Using a public DC fast-charger, it went from just above zero to 80 per cent of range in only 35 minutes. The MINI Electric can easily cope with longer journeys thanks to the option of using 50kW DC fast-charging stations, so a lunch break is all it takes to recharge.
The MINI Electric will be produced at MINI Plant Oxford from November 2019, with customer deliveries starting in March 2020. It is priced from 24,400 OTR including the Plug-in Car Grant.
All very close to the design concept I shared with you a month back.
Obviously the way forward and BMW together with Rolls are pushing ahead with E cars. How electricity gets produced is another issue. Nuclear, Wind, Waves? No idea. Reduced Car Excise Tax will be good. The issue for me is that it is hard enough finding Shell Garages with V Power, I can’t imagine the hunt for 50kW DC fast-charging stations. Ask a friend to bring a spare battery? I think not.
Keep them clean and shiny, until next month, pedal to the Metal.
Images: BMW UK
