Grease, oil or what? Front and back only....sides are normal. I can not get the front or the rear clean. Tried everything now including rubbing alcohol and all it does is smear this stuff around whatever it is. My old -06 had the same thing but this is worse. Both non-smoking cars since birth btw.

 

no idea what it is, but I've had a similar problem. I find rubbing the windows with a dry paper towel or microfiber cloth, then using glass cleaner helps. this removes the film, instead of just smearing it around.

 

The only thing I can think of would be a leaking heater core, but that would only affect the front window.

 

Here are some window cleaning tips I can give you:

1) Make you own window cleaner
2) Mix 1 part denatured alcohol, to 2 parts distilled water in a spray bottle
3) Use only 100% white terry cloth towels
4) Dedicate these towels to only window duty
5) Never wash these towels (or any of your car detailing towels) with fabric softener, careful, many detergents have hidden fabric softener
6) Spray one towel with window cleaner to clean glass
7) Use a second, dry towel, to polish the glass dry
8) Glass needs to be cool, out of the sun
9) For large areas, front and back, devide the area into 2 sections

I suspect, part of your current problem is that the towels you are using are contaminated with fabric softener.

 

On the outside, it is just greasy road residue - on the inside, it is usually trom the synthetic materials in the car getting warm and letting off "something". Seems to never stop no matter how old the car gets.

I have found that stuff from Stoner, Invisible Glass, to be excellent where nothing in the past had worked well for me (on my BMWs). I just bought some Griott's which I haven't tried yet - I hope it works as well. I also use those "blue" rolled paper towels made for glass or the blue folded paper bulk from Griott's. What used to seem like a PITA is pretty simple now - I even carry some Inv. Glass and a roll of towels in the frunk for touch-ups on the road.

There's also a triangular shaped window cleaning tool with a long arm you can get that uses micro-fiber covers - very hand for getting into the corners and way back into the rear window glass - from Stoner or Griotts - looks gimmicky, but turns out to work pretty well.

 

I love my Windshield Wonder with a little clear Windex.

As seen on TV! -

http://www.amazon.com/As-Seen-TV-Win.../dp/B003H2G2VY

 

+1 on Stoner, Invisible Glass works great, even safe for tint

 

+2 (and even with this stuff, i can sometimes see streaks. so yeah, what the hell IS that on our windows??)

 

Synthetic material off-gassing.

 

Spraying armorall or the like around?

 

Sprayway is the best window cleaner that I've found.

 

what detergent say you???

 

I use the Stoner on my cars, and was frustrated that no matter how carefully I cleaned my windows, there was always a little haze on the inside or the outside. I use blue "surgical" cloths. Then i figured out that I was washing them with the same microfiber cloths i use to wax or Speed Shine my car, so figured that no matter if i set the washer to presoak, hot wash, and double rinse, some of the wax was staying on my window cloths. So, now i wash them separately, and use the Griot's small blue rags on the interior, which work great, and my usual surgical rags on the outside. This seems to have resolved the tiny bit of wax residue on my glass cleaning cloths.

I think if you get wax on a cloth, you can never really get it out.

All the best...

 

I would imagine that No HTwo O is close with his suggestion that fabric softener on your window towels could be exacerbating the problem. As **** as it sounds, it's best to segregate your car towels/rags carefully.

 

Good question. Just look for ones that do not say they have a fabric softener added to the mix. Not hard to find. Most don't.