If your ‘van’s windscreen is looking a bit grimy, it will definitely be in need of some attention. The good news is cleaning a motorhome windscreen is both cheap and easy to do, leaving you with no excuse for dirty windows.
It’s an important motorhome maintenance task to carry out – driving a ‘van with grimy windows not only hampers the visibility of the person behind the wheel but can also be distracting and tiring.
In this article, we’ll talk you through the steps involved to give you a sparkling windscreen, just in time for the new season of touring. Be sure to check out our guide to how to clean a motorhome if the rest of your ‘van could do with some attention too.
How to clean a motorhome’s windscreen – a step-by-step guide:
1. To get the cleanest cab glass possible, you need to clean the worst muck off the windows before you start to polish them.
Run up the vehicle and squirt the washers over the screen for 10 seconds or so, to push through all the fluid that has been sitting in the system pipework for months. Remember to top up the washer reservoir afterwards.
2. Turn off the wipers and now clean the screen as normal. A good car shampoo and a sponge will get the worst off, but can dry a bit smeary. The next step is to hit the screen with a 50/50 mix of vinegar and warm water. This will cut through oily or greasy deposits, such as tree sap or soot on the glass.
We would advise avoiding household glass cleaners if possible, owing to their ammonia content, which is not good for rubbers and plastics.
3. Make the vinegar mixture in a spray bottle, squirt it onto a clean microfibre cloth and start cleaning. Dry and polish the glass afterwards with a second, clean cloth or newspaper. Don’t forget the inside, which often gets very hazy. The same mixture is great for cab windows and external mirrors, too.
4. You also need to be really fastidious about cleaning the wiper blades. Many motorhomes spend extended periods parked up, and the blades sit against the glass. Gunge builds up along the edge of the blade and the screen, making the blades stick to the screen, blunting the nice square edge that is essential for smear-free wiping.
5. You can buy expensive chemicals to clean wipers, but a cheap, effective solution is our favoured vinegar and water mix-up, which will cut all but the nastiest gunge.
Get a cloth, give a few long squirts of the mixture onto it, then draw the cloth along the length of the blade. Repeat until the cloth is left clean.
Make sure the wipers are thoroughly dried too – you want to avoid having the vinegar being left in contact with the blades for an extended period.
Are you looking to get your ‘van back to its sparkling best all over? Then our guide to the best motorhome cleaners will help you choose the best cleaning product for you and your ‘van! You can also see our top tips for how to prolong the life of your motorhome.
Future Publishing Limited, the publisher of practicalmotorhome.com, provides the information in this article in good faith and makes no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. Individuals carrying out the instructions do so at their own risk and must exercise their independent judgement in determining the appropriateness of the advice to their circumstances. Individuals should take appropriate safety precautions and be aware of the risk of electrocution when dealing with electrical products. To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither Future nor its employees or agents shall have any liability in connection with the use of this information. You should check that any van warranty will not be affected before proceeding with DIY projects.
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