Lots of good resources, one clear winner and two absentees
Frost, slush and salt residue mean hard work for the windshield wiper system. Without a good cleaner, it's easy to lose sight of the steering wheel. Encouragingly, quite a few products performed well in the test.
New windshield cleaner should be in the car's wiper water tank by the time winter sets in. The most convenient are ready-mixes, of which there are quite a few convincing ones, as shown in a test by "Auto Bild". The best of these is "Anti-Frost & Klarsicht" from Sonax with a score of 1.3.
The test winner gets the windshield completely clean with just the fourth wipe cycle, and it also achieved full marks for frost protection, which works down to minus 20 degrees Celsius. With a price of the equivalent of 55 cents per cleaning process, the Sonax product is also the cheapest in the test, which also makes it the price-performance winner.
Five other products were also convincing and achieved scores between 1.9 and 2.4: "Nigrin Scheiben-Frostschutz Energizer Fertigmix", "Cartechnic Scheibenreiniger mit Frostschutz gebrauchsfertig", "Total Wash Scheibenfrostschutz Fertig-Mix", "Caramba Winter Scheibenreiniger gebrauchsfertig" and "Robbyrob Klarblick Premium Frostschutz". However, two products also received the grade "unsatisfactory". Both "Klax Scheibenfrostschutz Fertig-Mix" and "JMC Scheibenreiniger mit Frostschutz Ready-Mix" delivered too poor a cleaning performance.
Summer and winter versions of the windscreen cleaner
Windshield cleaners are available in a summer and a winter version. While the former contains protein-dissolving additives against insect residues, alcohol is added as antifreeze in the cold season. In general, windshield cleaners are available as a ready-mix and as a concentrate. The latter are usually somewhat cheaper, but you have to measure and mix them yourself.
It is important that the cleaner bears a test seal. Unsuitable products can damage paint and rubber seals or cause stress cracks in headlights.
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Despite numerous failures in the test, several automotive windshield cleaners performed well. The medium-performing products included "Nigrin Scheiben-Frostschutz Energizer Fertigmix", "Cartechnic Scheibenreiniger mit Frostschutz gebrauchsfertig", "Total Wash Scheibenfrostschutz Fertig-Mix", and "Caramba Winter Scheibenreiniger gebrauchsfertig". Despite not being the test winner, these products demonstrated their effectiveness, undergoing numerous wipe cycles to achieve satisfactory results. The price-performance winner, "Anti-Frost & Klarsicht" from Sonax, however, outshined them all, providing an extremely affordable and effective solution for windshield cleanliness, even in harsh winter conditions.
Source: www.ntv.de
