So I'm a bit slow

For the last year I've been amazed at how easily my windshield sheds rain and stuff like that. I remember thinking "HOW in the hell does it do that?"

It's really quite easy....if you fill the reservoir up with Rain-X windshield wiper fluid.

 

Paint your truck black, it will be far too fast for rain to stick on.

 

Until the gravel road I live on beats the @%$# out of it, anyways. Black looks so good pristine....which will never happen on our road. LOL

 

Then your truck wasn't black enough! If you have as little as chrome bumper caps you are hindering the true speed.

If you have nothing but black and still have this problem, that's where you leverage the "trucks are expected to be dirty" card.

 

There's a good thread on windshield treatments here. https://www.tundras.com/threads/aquapel-rain-x-wd-40-crisco.40553/

Some swear by them, others (like me) swear at them.

 

Yeah, I saw that, and honestly...not sure what I'm doing right, but even living on a gravel road, that's something I've never had happen. Trust me, if it ever does, I'm done with the stuff...but for now (and for the year I've owned it) the stuff's been great.

With that said, being a nerd (server admin, civil service) I love to learn, so I'm reading over that other thread right now.

 

I'm pretty sure I have Rain X in all my vehicles but I didn't think it was Earth shattering or anything. Maybe because I'm using the stuff that's good to -50 or maybe because the stealership always tops me up with cheap stuff when I go in.

 

Just wax your windshield, flies right off....

 

Well, I'd forgotten about the Rain-X windshield wiper fluid; so I was assuming the, er, 'oleophobic' (I think that's the word for water-repelling) property was inherent to the windshield.

In truth, I wasn't looking for Rain-X. A few years back I'd gotten an oil change and forgot to tell them to put the winter windshield fluid in, and that winter, whilst driving through WV, we hit an enormous snowstorm - and the crap on the windshield froze hardcore. I had to resort to peering through *any* part of the windshield that was clean, and then getting out every few miles to clean the windshield by hand, as the fluid/wipers weren't doing sh*t.

Ever since then, the ONLY stuff I'll put in my reservoir is the winter stuff; and it just so happened the only winter stuff they had was the Rain-X stuff. If they'd have had something else I'd have just gone with that. *shrug*

 

Yup, here we run winter stuff year round. My dad bought a vehicle that was transferred here from a dealership on the west coast and those geniuses put water in the washer fluid reservoir when they prepped the truck.

 

Except for this winter, it doesn't get below freezing much. Had a guy in Autozone poke fun at me for buying "the colored water" a while back. Whatever, we have family up north and have made trips in the winter, so I never want to be caught with water in ours. Just before the Big Freeze I was lucky to find some that was good down to 0° to mix with what was in the cars already. "Rated" to 32° - lol , is typically what we find here.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't bother with the -50 stuff if I lived in Texas, that's for sure!

 

I'd bother with it in the winter, but most of the stuff that's good below freezing is illegal in Texas.

 

So you guys using the Rain-x washer fluid don’t have problems with buildup? I used it for a period of time and had a film/haze on the part of the glass that wasn’t cleared by the wipers. This was on a previous car with a washer/wiper system for the back window. It was most prevalent in the back, but I started to see a problem on the front window too. Cleaning it off was a PITA.

I put Rain-X on the Tundra’s back window to help keep it cleaner longer, but that’s it. No more washer fluid.

 

Why illegal?

 

I've had no issues with it, personally. The only thing I noticed is that if there's a bug on the windshield and it's one of those suckers that's welded onto the windshield (LOL), it tends to want to 'coat' over the bug, but it's nothing 10 seconds at the gas station with that windshield cleaner squeegee won't clean.

 

That seems like kinda a goofy thing to be illegal.

*guy pours winter windshield fluid in truck*

Cops:

 

It has something to do with ingredients that the state considers harmful. Here's an example.

 

That was my initial thought. I can understand California banning it because apparently standing in front of your hotel causes cancer there but Texas?

 

I never noticed that. Considering all the chemical/oil/gas facilities along the gulf coast, I'm surprised anything and everything just short of Agent Orange isn't allowed here. lol

 

Maybe that's why it's illegal - the gov't and other corporations are already doing it so they make it illegal for everyone else to offset.

 

Wife got to visit there last year in April, I think it was. She works for a healthcare company out there in Phoenix, and they flew her out for a week.

It was funny - being from Missouri, suffice it to say that it's a *tad* warmer in AZ in April than it is in MO; so she was wearing shorts and flip-flops on her off time and was getting looks like "WTF" from her new fellow coworkers. LOL

 

I was surprised to see a guy wearing a parka in Texas in November when it was 75F.