I’ve had my Protege for about 6 months now and I have applied RainX to the windows several times and never noticed the gunk on the front and back windshield. I have always used the bottle of RainX and a rag to put the stuff on with, however this time I bought some handy wipes with RainX already on it. It was a lot more convenient, but by using a thin paper towel I felt the crud on the windshield. It felt like sand. I tried several cleaners without any good results. I took a razor blade and scraped the windshield and low and behold it was sand. If you have ever put tint on your windows you know what I mean. No wonder the wiper blades don’t last. The entire windshield had like a fine coating of crud and sand on it. Once it was off I found the RainX went on very smooth and the wipers work much better. Any one else found this on their cars?

Bob

 

But that is somthin though

 

I use the wipes as well. They seem to do a much better job. The "sand" isn't unusal. A lot of crap gets thrown up on your car from vehicles in front. Not only that, but just the miscellanious 'stuff' that floats in the air accumulates on the entire car.

 

I know what this sounds like, this stuff came from the road, however I don’t think so. First my car is garaged most of the day and all night. It has only been driven in the rain twice and washed regularly. I think this stuff came from the factory. I got the car with only 3 miles on it. I didn’t check the out side of the glass until now, but I had a shop do the inside with tint within two days of getting the car. I watched them work for a long time (almost 3 hours) getting the glass ready for the tint. I should have thought about cleaning the outside, however the wipers worked OK in the two rainstorms I drove it in. I don’t believe the stuff was road grime. More like a coating over the sand. Something from shipping maybe? Anyway no other car I have has this stuff on it and they are all driven in the same area. Just a thought on maybe why the wiper blades are failing to soon. The only other car I ever had to take a razor and scrape the entire glass was a very old car with lots of road miles (and scratches in the glass) that sat for over a year outside