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Taxi Today Test: Clear View - Winter Windshield Cleaners in the Stress Test
The range of winter windshield cleaners in hardware and supermarkets, at petrol stations and in automotive accessories stores is large. Taxi heute has selected seven common winter cleaner concentrates from Sonax, Aral, Liqui Moly, Cartechnic, Caramba, Euro Lub and Nigrin in a 1:1 mixing ratio with freezing protection down to minus 20 degrees for the test.
Only three cleaners ensure a clear view
Deserved test winner and at the same time also value-for-money winner is by a wide margin the "very good" winter windshield cleaner Sonax Antifrost + Klarsicht Konzentrat, which as the only cleaner in the test already after the third wipe provides a clean windshield. Because of the high cleaning power, one cleaning costs only about 25 cents. So fast, thorough and cheap is no other in comparison. Material compatibility and freezing protection are also exemplary (see results table). The second-placed "good" cleaner Aral Klare Sicht Winter Konzentrat already requires twice as many wipe cycles for a good view. In third place with the grade "good" in overall performance the Liqui Moly Scheibenfrostschutz. The diluted concentrate provides after several wipes for a clean windshield and clear visibility.
All of the other cleaners are disappointing in comparison. None truly meets the criterion "clean windshield" even after ten wipe cycles. From the fourth place onwards, the experts therefore only give the grades "sufficient" in the overall assessment. In the order of their placement: Cartechnic windshield cleaner with frost protection concentrate, Caramba windshield frost protection, Euro Lub Clear View Winter Concentrate, and Nigrin Power windshield-frost protection concentrate.
Poor cleaners can actually be dangerous, because during wiping streaks often form on the windshield, which glare in the dark and reduce visibility. Usually inferior ingredients are responsible for the heavy streaking right after wiping.
Surfactants make the difference in cleaning performance
A good winter cleaner should not only free the glass from the typical salt spray, but also from the greasy film of tire wear, brake dust, exhaust soot, motor oil, and wax from the car wash. This is a particular challenge for the windshield cleaner in winter, because it sticks even more stubbornly than salt to the windshield. What is decisive for a good cleaning are the so-called solids, the surfactants in the concentrates. Cold-resistant surfactants make the difference in cleaning performance under frost.
This is how we tested
Testing was conducted in a specialized laboratory equipped with a fully automatic test stand for windshield cleaners. This test stand guarantees identical conditions for every test run. An air conditioning system and fans provide the simulation of a drive at a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius and a speed of 25 km/h. The area behind the test pane is heated. The test dirt automatically applied to the clean pane complies with the specifications of the detergent association IKW. The so-called hydrophobic dirt ("winter dirt") consists, among other things, of soot, tire wear, and motor oil. Since these are concentrates, they are mixed 1:1 with tap water, so that antifreeze protection reaches roughly minus 20 degrees. For each test run of a cleaner, the dirt is first applied to the pane, then wiped once without water to distribute the dirt. A total of ten wiping cycles are then performed with spraying the mixture through the windshield washer nozzles. Per wiping cycle, 50 milliliters of the tested product are sprayed onto the pane. A high-resolution camera records the cleaning process. From the image data, software calculates the cleaning performance per wiping operation. Once the value reaches 63 percent, the pane is considered cleaned. The assessment not only considers from which wiping cycle a cleaner reaches this value (the earlier, the more points), but also how high the value is after the tenth wiping cycle. If a cleaner does not reach 63 percent even after ten wiping cycles, it receives zero points in this discipline. Additionally, the freezing point of a 1:1 mixture is determined and its material compatibility tested.
Content automatically translated.
Taxi-Fahrzeuge (Pkw) , Taxi-Newsletter, Taxameter, Taxi-Fahrer , BZP – Deutscher Taxi- und Mietwagenverband , Straßenverkehrsordnung (StVO) , Krankenbeförderung , Weiterbildung , Taxi-Konzessionen , Verkehrspolitik , Mietwagenbranche , Taxi-Apps , Berufskraftfahrer-Qualifikations-Gesetz BKrFQG) , Taxizentralen , Personal, Gehälter, Arbeitsschutz , Wirtschaftsnachrichten , Werbung , Taxi-Folierung , Taxi-Umrüster , Straßenverkehr , Elektromobilität, Taxifuhrpark und -flottenmanagement , Taxi-Versicherungen , Hybrid, Diesel, Erdgas , Taxi-Magazin
